


Universes Apart

by louhearted



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Niall is there for like two seconds, Zayn and Liam are only mentioned I'm sorry, blink and you'll miss him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 07:19:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4470275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louhearted/pseuds/louhearted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry loves Louis, and three years are a long time.</p><p>AU: A love confession gone south and one party trying it again a few years down the road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Universes Apart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiwikero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwikero/gifts).



> Harry and Louis are at the same age in this story, but that doesn't change the fact that they are made for each other.
> 
> I have never written a story with flashbacks (shown in italics) before, and I hope that they are not too confusing, but this story could only be told in pieces. Because this is about uncovering things along the way, not all at once.

 

Harry knew the streets of this part of town like the back of his hand. It might have been three years since he had last walked through them, three years since he had last hidden behind Mrs. Johnson´s rubbish bins, or stolen Mr. Sloan's roses, or even used the Franklin's garden as a short cut home, but he still remembered everything with such vivid clarity, that it was not hard to imagine himself doing the exact same thing right now.

 

It was not at all far stretched to picture himself ploughing through the bushes of the run-down public school to his left to get to the more or less secret hide out of their school's seniors who were headstrong in their belief that the teachers didn't know what they were up to. It had been a lame excuse to play cool, to get lost in the haze of alcohol and the dizziness of wilfully blurred lines of legality.

 

He remembered it all with a fond smile on his lips. A smile that was hard to keep in place, because of the memories that inevitably followed and because of the cold that was ripping at his collar and his hair, that turned his lips to porcelain that cracked a little more with the slightest movement. He could already feel the blood trickling into his mouth, exploding on his tongue like tiny comets. The taste of metal was a shock to his system just as much as it was tethering him down to the here and now.

 

What good were the memories of _then_ , he thought bitterly, when the _now_ was so imminent. The past was just a golden flourish of airbrushed facts and they never helped. They never gave the advice he needed, they never let him learn, and they never let him forget, let alone forgive.

 

Harry was well trained when it came to crushing down the nagging thought of _then._ He got used to denying the pleasure of the foggy nothingness that the past could lend, those soft edged pictures of a time where mistakes were something one would only ever attribute to adults, to parents, to something that had seemed too far off to even contemplate.

 

Adulthood had hit them like a truck, unforgiving, the brakes untouched, and the gas pedal caressing the dirty floorboard, as if the impact was planned to be all consuming. If Harry hadn't stopped believing in a higher power at the age of fourteen, he might have said that the Gods had been working against them.

 

But considering that the Gods could probably not care less about their downfall, he was the only one to blame.

 

Oh, that unrelenting feeling of guilt. How he loathed it.

 

Snuffling, he pulled his coat tighter around his middle and licked his lips. Warmth was a far off concept in this particular July night.

 

He didn't know if the feeling of dead, cold hands on his exposed skin had something to do with the actual temperatures around him, or if it was the personification of dread that seeped through his skin from the inside.

 

He was pretty sure that he could blame the latter, but none of it was any help. He was cold. Nothing more and nothing less. He would survive. He had for three years.

 

The street was slick from rain, the reflection of the street lamps blinking up at him like a thousand little stars. For a little while he indulged himself and sped up his steps to watch the universe roll beneath his feet, but when the street came to an end he had to look up again. Left or right. Confrontation or another extension to his midnight stroll, one that would, after a sloppy ten minutes, bring him back to the same question. Confrontation or Cowardice.

 

He turned left. What other choice was there after all. This was all or nothing and it wouldn't magically change if he turned right. Plus he was cold, he told himself, it was better to knock on a door in the hopes of warmth than to freeze to death without trying.

 

The houses got smaller and smaller with every step he took, whereas his guilt took on unmeasurable heights.

 

Pulling his shoulders up to his ears he kept his eyes trained on the street and found his way by memory alone. When he finally came to a stop, the house in front of him was dimly lit and seemed to radiate the warmth that Harry was missing from his chest. It was a small but quaint house that screamed family, starting with the toys that were scattered across the small but neat front garden, and the set of swings to the right, to the various curtains upstairs. There were pink curtains splattered with fairies, and blue ones with crowns on them, both of which were illuminated by the faint glow of night lamps, there were white ones for what Harry knew was the parent's bedroom and on the far left corner there was one small window that had ripped yellow curtains with footballers sewed into them. But he couldn't tell them apart from the shadows outside because there was no light to help him along.

 

Downstairs there were still a few lights on, mainly in what Harry had come to know as the living room, with its old quilt covered sofa and the fuzzy rugs. Rugs that held more memories and more tears and more laughter than Harry had stored up in his little studio apartment in London. Even more than his mother's house a few roads down, it had always been more.

 

He took a deep breath, his chest expanding against the expensive material of his coat, his lungs itching to be free again. But his emotions still had a choke hold on both of them and if he was being honest with himself, he needed all the armour he could get around his heart. He was stupid, but not too stupid to walk into battle with his heart on the line.

 

This was a dumb idea. It was way past midnight and if Harry had done the right maths, he would be knocking on a door that housed two kids around the age of 10. This was not only dumb but also inconsiderate and he was just about to turn around and forget all about it, until he saw a shadow in one of the windows.

 

It was him.

 

Harry had only seen him out of the corner of his eyes, but there was no mistaking it and he was frozen to the spot.

 

He had to do this. Convincing himself that he was doing it because he didn't want to wake any one up, he walked passed the front door and walked towards what he knew was the back door that lead into the kitchen.

 

Running a hand through his hair he scuffled his boots on the patio and sighed. He could do this. Just one knock and then everything would unfold itself.

 

Without much success he tried to ignore how his fingers started to shake as he lifted his hand from his side, and curled them into a fist. The following knock echoed apologies and regret and fear and he was drenched in cold sweat before he had even let his hand fall again.

 

He heard soft cursing from behind the door and he couldn't help himself but smile.

 

“Who's there?”

 

Two words, said with so little malice that Harry couldn't answer, couldn't bring himself to form any words. Two words after three years, two words so innocent, and in such stark contrast to the last two words exchanged between them.

 

The hollow 'Fuck you' was inked into Harry's heart and hurt everyday, it was a never closing wound and it had been said by the same person in a different time with a different voice and an entirely different intent. Who's there?, so much innocence and so much banality that Harry had trouble breathing.

 

But before Harry could break out of his haze and get over his initial shock, before he could answer, the door was swung open and light flooded the porch, light so warm and orange and foreign that Harry could only stare at it. Something was weighing his head down, making it impossible for him to look at the man in front of him, impossible to look into his eyes.

 

“Harry?”

 

Even softer, but stripped off banality and sifting with unspoken and unlived history.

 

Harry looked up and his lungs deserted him, fleeing from the battlefield and leaving him in the dust, literal dust it seemed, as his words tumbled over his lips like a chainsaw, so raw and dry and metallic, sawdust cloaking up his throat.

 

“Hi.”

 

Nothing.

 

Harry had never been a fan of science, but in a sudden moment of haziness he remembered that light was both waves and particles, both soft and hard, and now with the orange hue of home still pouring into the night, he felt as if he could finally grasp the concept. Because he felt the light like tiny needles pressing into his skin, illuminating him too much, tethering him to the run down wood of the Tomlinson porch, striking him like bullets, and he could feel his last oxygen bleed out of him, and yet he also felt the waves of homesickness dancing across his skin, and telling him to stay, to swim in the waves of orange light and stay up-float, soft hands were almost grabbing him. And still he said nothing.

 

“What -” Words seemed to be at war with themselves tonight. “What are you doing here?”

 

Harry shivered when he felt the innocence of before disappear. Those words had much more meaning.

 

“I'm -” That wasn't a good start, he decided and turned his head away. And when he blinked into the night he couldn't help but smile, like a man in shock, his reactions were in complete contradiction to what his body was experiencing. Putting his damp mouth against his shoulder, he tried to hide his grin.

 

The sudden rush of happiness, or was it adrenaline, seemed unstoppable, like a tsunami wave, and Harry silently begged for complete destruction, so that he could build _this_ anew.

 

“Louis.” A start.

 

“Harry.” Mocking but inquisitive and all he needed.

 

“I was in the neighbourhood. Thought I'd drop by.” Striving for casual, and stopping at nothing. “I missed you.”

 

The breathless second between this moment and the next could have filled years in other universes, other galaxies, with other people, other lives, and other confessions that should have stayed buried for this to last.

 

And then Louis chose to step aside and three other universes, the one where he doesn't, the one where he hesitates too long and the one where he steps outside, choosing night-time over orange lights, collapsed behind them.

 

But Harry didn't hear them burn, too preoccupied with the soft whisper of his shoes against the kitchen tiles, and the sound of Louis' breath, the shifting of material over his chest, and the smell of laundry detergent and dirty dishes in the sink. Home. In every sense of feeling and in every sense of meaning.

 

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

 

Harry turned around. Louis was standing next to the kitchen door, still slightly ajar as if he was unsure if Harry would actually stay, as if he was imagining him dashing away, running into the night, without an explanation, without pleasantries, without an apology.

 

His hair was slightly ruffled, by his own hands Harry assumed, and his cheeks slightly pink, by the cold Harry made himself believe. There was a stain on Louis' shirt, a small red spot that looked a lot like strawberry jam just above his waist.

 

And Harry found himself craving coffee all of the sudden, craved the burn in the back of his throat and the dry and bitter after-taste, craved something that would remind him that standing in this kitchen was not something his brain should depict as normal. He shouldn't know where to step to avoid creaking floor boards, he shouldn't know where to find the sugar, the flour, and Jay's secret sweets stash.

 

He shouldn't but he did and he wished for everything to be rearranged, for his brain to be a bit more lost, to be new so that he wouldn't fall into the hole of his past and lose the present that stood waiting in front of him. The present that stood in front of him, fiddling with his shirt, his eyes flickering from the floor to the window but never to Harry himself.

 

But Harry didn't ask for coffee. He nodded and opened his coat. His hands only slightly clammy, his fingers shaking like leaves in the wind.

 

“Still two sugars?” Louis asked, his voice no more than a breathe and Harry nodded again. The lump in his throat growing. Too much _then_ and too little _now_. His brain was yelling at him to somehow get out of this circle of reliving and start something new by apologizing or by declining tea, by declining his old self´s needs and habits, by becoming the Harry that would knock on a stranger's door after midnight and demand two open ears.

 

“Louis...” He didn't know how he had intended to follow that up, but the need to break the clutter clatter of crockery had been too strong to not say anything. Somehow Harry had felt the need to remind Louis that he was still here. Intruding into what seemed to be a very well-played domestic routine, the cleaning up of dishes and the putting away of dolls and other toys, but still a presence worth acknowledging.

 

Louis didn't. His shoulders tensed beneath his shirt and his grip tightened on the cup he had just gotten from the cabinet above the sink (just like Harry remembered), but he didn't look up.

 

“I don't think we have Chamomile tea in the house at the moment, is Yorkshire all right?”

 

Since when was Louis so quiet? Harry wanted him to scream. Wanted him to acknowledge the giant elephant in the room. Wanted Louis to acknowledge HIM. He was the bloody elephant and he felt too big in this too small kitchen, this room so full of memories of family breakfasts and dinners and the occasional water fight, or if Harry wanted to dig deeper, the place of his first kiss. He didn't want to though and quickly tore his gaze away from the sink. From Louis altogether.

 

Suddenly overcome by tiredness he focused on the colourful splatter of children's drawings on the fridge instead.

 

Apparently remembrance was something he couldn't escape tonight and he thought back to the first drawing from himself that Jay had put up there, with a smile as proud as his mother's had been when he had told her about it. The last time he had been here the picture had still been hanging there, yellowing around the edges – the edges that were still accountable for, three of them had already seen a fast end – and partly hidden beneath the on-storm of glittery paintings from the next generation of Tomlinson children.

 

Now the spot where his scribbled drawing had been was empty, the fridge too white and pristine in contrast to the rest.

 

“Harry.” Louis's voice filtered through. “Yorkshire?” When Harry focused his attention back on him, he saw him waving a small tea bag in front of him, and almost out of instinct he nodded. Again.

 

He really should start speaking soon.

 

Louis dropped the bag in the cup and reached over to the kettle, turning it on.

 

“We need to be quiet by the way.” Louis pointed upstairs and tapped his ear. “My family is asleep.”

 

“Yeah, uhm, I'm sorry.” Harry said. His voice gruff from the self imposed silence.

 

“Don't be.” Louis sighed and deflated. His shoulders sagging and his hands losing their knuckle breaking tautness. Harry didn't know what that meant but he welcomed it, felt more at ease knowing that Louis wasn't ready to jump at him, or preparing for Harry to run again. Whatever walls Louis had built up when he had opened the door for Harry, apparently he had abandoned them.

 

And yet still, the silence stretched on. Lasted until the kettle boiled and screamed, lasted through the clinking of cups, and lasted over Louis' soft foot steps, that took him towards Harry.

 

“Here.” He held the cup in front of him, offering it towards Harry, but Harry couldn't focus on the cup. All he saw was golden skin and fluttering eyelashes and soft hair and Louis. Louis Louis Louis. Right in front of him. So open and suddenly so vulnerable and suddenly the silence was too much.

 

“I wanted to apologize.”

 

Louis looked up. The hand with the cup lowering.

 

“Apologize?” He echoed and his eyes ran across Harry's face. “You already did.” Harry felt like a dripping canvas, fast paced ideas and colours swirling all over his skin, victim to the scrutinizing eye of the painter, only to be ripped apart or put in a corner, because it wasn't right, didn't fit. Not in the end. Maybe not even to begin with.

 

“No, I wanted to, I mean I missed you and I shouldn't have -”

 

Louis put the tea down.

 

“You don't have to apologize.” Louis mumbled and his eyelashes fluttered down again, his eyes obscured from Harry's view.

 

“I shouldn't have -” Kissed you, Harry thought. “-left. I shouldn't have left like that.”

 

 

 

“ _You shouldn't have.” Jay laughed and pulled Harry inside by his wrist, her nose still hidden in the bouquet of flowers Harry had bought on his way over. It had been more or less a spontaneous decision, more so in the way his heart had been beating like a hummingbird´s ever since he had gotten his letter, the stench of cold sweat his companion for the last two blocks, less so in the way he loved to make Jay laugh, to see her greet him with the same kind eyes she had had for him when he had first seen her, hiding behind Louis' legs when he was 9._

 

“ _For you, always.” He said and got himself a slap to the back of the head, and even though she didn't have to say it, he heard her voice loud and clear in his head, because she had said it so many times over the past nine years. 'Flattery will get you nowhere, kid.' often followed by Louis' chuckling response that his charm would get him killed one day. Maybe they both had had a point._

 

_Ducking away from Jay's teasing hands, Harry stumbled into the living room. And, like clockwork, he could hear hurried foot steps above him and then the trampling on the stairs, the sound of sock clad feet irregularly hitting the old stairs, because, as always, Louis was taking two stairs at a time._

 

_In next to no time, there was a body crashing into Harry. Arms winding around his chest, legs tangling between his own, the press of a face between his shoulder blades._

 

“ _You're late!” Louis yelled and Harry loved this loud, loud boy._

 

_Yes, loved him, was madly in love with him, had been for as long as he could remember. His best kept secret._

 

“ _I am not!” Harry laughed and spun around to lift the boy plastered to his back off the ground._

 

“ _Put me down, you oaf!” Squeals and laughter and Harry was so so gone for him._

 

“ _Last day of school, Hazza, can you believe it?” Louis laughed while he clambered onto Harry's back. Harry assumed to re-establish his power, but he took it with pride, he would carry Louis everywhere. And when the fuck had he gotten this sappy? He had been in love with Louis for nine years and he was sure that he hadn't started spitting bullshit like this since very recently. Well, it couldn't be helped now, he thought and grasped Louis' thighs to hold him tight, which, although Harry was not complaining, was not an easy task, with Louis wiggling around aimlessly._

 

_Of course Harry's grip on Louis' thighs was only so tight lest he fall, not to feel his muscles move beneath his fingertips, nor to feel the heat his body emitted, not even to feel everything Louis allowed him to have._

 

_Harry was in love, not a creep. At least he hoped so. He really couldn't tell the difference any more._

 

_By Louis' command Harry started to gallop into the kitchen. Coming to a standstill in front of the kitchen table, he gave Louis a small pat on his bum, telling him to jump off him, and Louis did. Harry felt him glide down his back like someone was burning him with an electric wire. He should have paid more attention in biology: how many sensory cells were hidden in the skin of his back again?_

 

_Harry didn't need to turn around to know that Louis had already climbed on top of the kitchen counter. Honestly, sometimes Harry feared that Louis was more monkey than man, but he had paid enough attention in class to know that that kind of imagery was mediocre at best._

 

“ _Did you know that you can have pet monkeys, Harry? Like small monkeys that you can keep as a pet. Forever if you want.”_

 

_Harry smiled and turned around, the intermittent sound of feet swinging against cupboards oddly comforting._

 

“ _Are you sure that you could handle another monkey in the house?”_

 

“ _Another…?” Louis asked, his eyebrows furrowing cutely before his eyes bulged and he puffed his chest. “I reject that kind of mean behaviour, Mr. Styles. I am your host after all. And just so you know I never said that I wanted one. I was just stating a fact.” The pout he pulled was less ridiculous than it should have been._

 

“ _But you always wanted one.” Harry grinned and stepped between Louis' legs. “And you are my little monkey. If you want to state facts, then what am I doing?”_

 

“ _Annoying me.” Louis decided and stuck his tongue out, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Also you should be the monkey. Look at your arms. And you eat all those damn bananas, get your facts straight.”_

 

_Harry ignored him and poked his cheek. “What do you want to call your pet monkey?”_

 

“ _I am not answering that. You offended me. You no longer have any right to the inner workings of my very un-ape like brain.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest._

 

“ _You do realize that the brain of an ape and a human is very compatible right? I don't know who you offended more with that statement actually. The monkey or yourself?” Harry pushed his hips against the counter to lean closer towards Louis, getting into his personal space solely to rile him up a little bit more. With his hands on either side of Louis he was caging him in completely and Louis' pout was mesmerizing._

 

“ _Eli.” He said and Harry was sure that if he weren't sitting on the counter he would stamp his feet. He was cute all around all the time always._

 

“ _Eli?” He asked and poked Louis' side._

 

“ _I would name him Eli.”_

 

_Harry raised an eyebrow and mouthed the name back at him._

 

“ _And he would be a better friend than you. He would respect me more. Because you, Styles, are a menace and a meanie and I don't like you any more”_

 

“ _Lies. Filthy lies.” Harry laughed and tackled Louis into a hug._

 

_The ensuing play fight was entirely Louis' fault as was the smashed plate and the soaked through counter. Harry was completely innocent, should Jay ever question him._

 

_When they were both leaning heavily against the kitchen table, their chests heaving and their arms pressed together, the last tangible connection after their tackle, Harry realized that he had to tell him now._

 

_His heart was beating fast from exhaustion but his lungs weren't burning because they tried to fill themselves with oxygen but because they were holding back premature tears. Tears that Harry knew were inevitable, but he didn't want to cry in front of Louis, because he wanted to be strong. He was the one who would move to another city. He needed to show Louis that he was capable of handling himself._

 

_Tears were no help in that matter._

 

“ _Hey Lou,” He whispered and nudged his elbow into Louis. “I have to tell you something.”_

 

_Louis looked up and smiled. Just smiled, because he didn't expect anything bad, anything life altering, anything big. Smiled and put his head on Harry's shoulder, because he was always seeking body contact._

 

“ _Remember how I talked about wanting to go into fashion design?” Instead of resting his cheek on top of Louis' feathery hair, Harry´s shoulders tensed up, Louis' head slipping from its resting place, and he put the pad of his thumb to his lips, biting softly on the soft tissue. A habit Louis had often reprimanded him for, but not this time. And Harry hated the implication._

 

“ _Yeah and I remember teasing you about it. Harry you literally own like two pairs of jeans. What's this about?”_

 

“ _I got an internship-” Louis froze, and if their arms weren't still touching, Harry wouldn't have noticed. But now he felt the blood in his veins freeze along side Louis' muscles and he felt the temperature in the room drop significantly._

 

“ _Oh that's great, Harry, I'm proud of you.” Louis laughed, and Harry heard how much he tried to sound supportive. Louis wanted to be proud, had been proud when Harry had first been able to braid his hair, had been proud when Harry had aced his maths tests, had been proud when Harry had brought home ten tadpoles and raised them while other kids, namely Louis, played soccer on the street outside. Louis was always proud. Too proud to admit when he was the one getting hurt in the process._

 

“ _In London, Lou. I got accepted in London.” He was a coward. A complete and utter coward. He couldn't even look him in the eyes, he didn't want to see all of his worlds shatter, didn't want to see the disappointment, the anger, the fear, Harry feared the fear he would see in Louis' eyes. The fear of being left behind, the fear of not being enough, the fear of finiteness. The fear of falling apart._

 

“ _When-” Louis coughed. “When did you apply?”_

 

_Had Harry mentioned that he was a coward? Because he couldn't answer. Didn't want to admit that he had started sending applications out months ago. Didn't want to admit that he was yearning for the freedom of a big city, because he didn't want to let Louis down. Hadn't wanted to let him down on the day when he had filed out his first letter, and didn't want to disappoint him now._

 

“ _Harry?”_

 

 

 

“Harry.” Louis soft voice pulled Harry back into the present. “I am not still-” He interrupted himself with an airily chuckle. “-Not still angry about that.”

 

You should be, Harry wanted to scream. You should be and you should scream and fight and kick and bite and do something else than offer Harry tea.

 

“I'm still sorry.” He whispered and finally made a grab for the abandoned tea cup. It was warm and tasted like home. Tasted like Louis. Tasted like he had smelled in the mornings, and how he had laughed at night.

 

“Don't be Harry.” Louis chuckle sounded forced to Harry's ears. “Come on let's sit. We have a lot of catching up to do. I mean how long has it been? Two? Three years?”

 

If Harry had to describe how Louis' words cut through him, he wouldn't pick the go to metaphor of a knife slicing him open. He felt as if that didn't do it justice. It felt as if he was nailed to the ground and a glacier was slowly growing on top of him, a mixture of suffocation and hypothermia, a feeling of doom and finality. How long did glaciers need to melt? Harry wouldn't make it out alive anymore.

 

Two or three years. He didn't know. Hadn't kept count. Hadn't lived by counting the days.

 

Three years, two months, and thirteen days.

 

One year of studying abroad. Living in a shitty flat over a bar with a neon sign that buzzed and blinked and kept him awake until the morning hours.

 

One year of living in the luxury that Nick could show him. Living on couches, living with strangers, living as if Harry from Doncaster didn't exist. Making friends, meeting Zayn and staying in the haze of new, new, new.

 

One year of finding back to himself. Of putting his new knowledge to use, of fitting clothes for Zayn, of meeting Liam, of foreign love and other happiness, that he could look upon from his self chosen glass prison.

 

Two months and thirteen days of picking up the courage to buy a train ticket home and to walk towards this. The house at the end of the street, standing in this kitchen, talking with Louis.

 

Two or three years.

 

“Yeah, it's been awhile hasn't it?”

 

Louis sat down and raised his eyebrows at the chair next to him. Beckoning Harry to sit next to him.

 

“So what have you been up to in the big city, Harry?” And it sounded so conversational. But Harry loathed the lack of warmth, the lack of remembrance, the lack of nicknames, the lack of home.

 

And yet he didn't allow himself to be bitter. This was his doing after all. He would not be the first to throw a stone, in his prison of opal glass.

 

“The internship was amazing, you know.” Of course Louis couldn't know. Didn't want to know. But what was Harry supposed to say. “I met really nice people-” You would like them, he added in his mind, imagining himself, Louis and Zayn and Liam sitting somewhere blatantly ordinary, where all of this just wasn't. He pictured Louis teasing Liam´s righteousness and he saw Louis cackling with Zayn.

 

And he saw himself, and he allowed himself to smile. “-and I really like my job there. It's something that really makes me happy.” And it did.

 

No matter how much Harry had missed Louis, and how much the guilt of leaving him behind, of confronting him with his feelings, of letting Louis down in so many aspects, had eaten at him over the years, he was happy. He had found something that he genuinely enjoyed and that he wanted to wake up to every morning. Fashion had always fascinated him, and being able to work behind the scenes of photo shoots and runways, fixing clothes, closing tears and sowing rags together, it was something else and Harry loved it.

 

Loved every second of the rushed background hushes that followed such shows everywhere. Loved it when Nick gave him the opportunity to design something himself, loved it when Zayn let him make something for him, posing as his model for hours without complaint. Loved it when someone complimented his work, even if it would only be catching dust for the next couple of years in some back room closet at Nick's firm. Loved the act of creating more than showing off his skills. Loved it so much.

 

Louis' lips twitched and Harry couldn't tell any more, couldn't say if it was disdain, joy, empathy, mischief, he didn't know any more and he felt the glacier growing. Felt the weight of it on his chest, felt it crushing him.

 

“That sounds nice.” Louis whispered and traced invisible lines on the table with his thumb.

 

“How about you? I mean, what did you do?” Harry cringed. He saw Louis. He saw the tired eyes, the dirty t-shirt (he was sure that those stains were from children's hands and mouths, definitely strawberry and now that he looked more closely also baby powder?), saw the rough hands and saw the dirty dishes behind them, mocking them almost.

 

“Oh, you know, the usual. Helped my mum, worked a bit.”

 

Louis' thumb caught on a loose splinter of wood and he cursed.

 

“How are they? Your family? Jay?”

 

And now Louis genuinely smiled. Because his family meant everything to him. Always had. And even if he might be slightly bitter that he was still helping at home instead of prancing off to London like Harry, who remembered Louis using these exact words, prancing, as if it had been easy, he would never not smile when he was talking about his family. And Harry adored him for it.

 

“We actually have two more additions to the Tomlinson household.” Louis laughed and for the first time he sought eye contact with Harry. “Twins. Doris and Ernest. About a year old now.”

 

“Lou, that's wonderful!” He reached for Louis, wanted to hug him, wanted to touch him, to reassure him that he was happy for them, but in the end, his arm stopped short in between them and he swiftly pulled it back.

 

 

 

_Louis' pulled away, their arms slipping apart._

 

_With big eyes he looked up at Harry and Harry saw that he wanted to scream. He saw that Louis wanted to wake up, wish this to be nothing but a dream, even caught him staring at their stack of cook books, knew how fascinated Louis had been with sleepwalking as a kid, knew that he was checking if he could still read. He could. He looked at Harry. He was awake._

 

“ _A few months ago, Lou, I-” He tried stepping closer to Louis. He suddenly seemed too far away and Harry needed to touch him._

 

“ _A few MONTHS?!” The boy in front of him suddenly yelled and Harry shrunk back in on himself. “Why didn't you tell me?” It wasn't a real accusation, it almost seemed childishly curious._

 

“ _I didn't even know if they would take me, I mean I'm a nobody and I didn't know how to tell you so I thought I'd just see how it'd all play out, Louis please, I'm sorry.”_

 

“ _But why didn't you tell me?” Nothing more but a mumble, but Harry had heard it nonetheless. And he didn't really know why._

 

_He had just never felt as if it were the right moment to tell Louis. It had always been something he was dreading, if he was honest with himself. It was a topic that he didn't want to breach, because as much as it would shake Louis, it was always also something that would set Harry apart from his home town. From his family, from his friends, and once again Louis. He wouldn't be small Hazza any more, just another face behind a tinted laptop screen._

 

_He had been so scared, just terrified and clueless, and he had known, even the first time around that he had withheld the truth, lying into Louis' smiling face, that it was the wrong thing to do. But late at night, he would always tell himself, that he was just human. And that Louis would understand._

 

_It had been more a dream, than visions, he now realized._

 

“ _I don't know, Louis I'm...” Of course that wasn't enough. Of course Louis wanted answers, and Harry wanted to give him all he asked for, begged for with the tilt of his mouth, the tremor around his eyes, all fluttering eyelashes and pinched eyebrows, and the slight shaking of his hands. He wanted to give him everything, starting with a hug that would finally crash both of their chests and hearts together once more, but he knew that he had nothing left to offer. He had taken too much and lost himself in the vanity that hid behind lies._

 

“ _You don't know? How stupid do you think I am, Harry? Every time I asked you what you wanted to do after school, you must have lied straight into my face! Every time I asked you if something exciting or new had happened and you shrugged it off you were actuallylaughing behind my back, weren't you? Of course you bloody know why Harry!”_

 

“ _Lou, I'm -”_

 

“ _Don't 'Lou' me! So what? You just thought that stupid little Louis wouldn't be able to handle it? Did you think that me staying at home helping my family would, what Harry what? - did you think that I would be angry that you are looking out for yourself? Guess what, Harry, I am not as breakable as you think! You can bloody talk to me about your future without fearing that I am going to fucking break!”_

 

_Louis' chest was heaving, his hands clenched into fists by his sides, and Harry almost wanted him to hit him square in the face. Wanted to feel a fraction of the pain Louis had currently burning through his veins._

 

“ _That's not it, I swear, I was just -”_

 

_Harry felt cold. Doncaster experienced its first heatwave since the beginning of the century, and he felt cold, right down to the bone, felt as if his bone marrow was made out of ice. He felt immobile. Felt cold and slow and useless._

 

_But most of all he felt lethal. He felt as if he could run Louis down, break him, suffocate him, and maybe he'd do it all with the soft force of kilometres and litres of ice he had lodged inside of his body. It wasn't his intention, it wasn't something he could imagine doing in his wildest dreams, but here he was, cornering Louis in his own kitchen, making him fight for it._

 

“ _I didn't know how to tell you.” He whispered, confessed and his breath hitched. How he formed words over the cacophony of 'Louis Louis Louis Louis' in his head, he didn't know, but maybe that was for the better._

 

“ _Easy. Louis I applied for an internship. Louis I'm moving to London. See how easy it is?”_

 

_He looked so small standing between Harry and the kitchen counter._

 

_The last time Harry had seen Louis hurt was at the beginning of summer when Stanley Lucas (the name was laced with barely contained disdain in Harry's head, was always written in big red capital letters and fully scripted, evoked simply by the sort of jealousy that accumulated over years and years of untold feelings and the innocent hate that began to race through teenage veins when someone else was allowed to touch the one person, that you were holding yourself back from) – when Stanley Lucas ran into Louis on the football pitch, both too adamant about the ball and too set on winning to notice the other one running head first into them._

 

_Louis' knee had been dislocated and Harry had spent the first few weeks of summer taking care of him; when breathless laughter from children had filled the mornings and the drunken giggles of teens had sifted through the night air, he had sat at home with Louis, taking his mind of the pain by playing mindless computer games and cooking him everything he loved._

 

_The few and scattered memories before that, the memories of Louis in pain were hazy, all behind a milky film of denial and fast paced years of wild childhood imagination, Louis falling from his bike, Louis trying not to cry about a splinter in his arm, Louis in the ER when Phoebe had broken her arm, Louis in tears when Lottie had scraped her legs after he had chased her around the garden. It was like watching an old film in slow-motion, all soft sounds of video tape crackling along the edges of thought._

 

_Harry saw himself as the photographer. He was never in the picture. But always there. Harry had pushed Louis' bike next to him when Louis had talked bravely about how awesome his fall must have looked, he had been the one who had suggested climbing their neighbours' tree in the first place, he had been the one to buy Louis candy and coffee that neither one of them was allowed to drink back then to stay awake in the cold hospital ER, he was the one who had calmed Louis down with a hand on the small of his back, when he had tried to bandage up his sister, his hands shaky from guilt and shock._

 

“ _It's not that easy.” He breathed and tried to think back if it ever had been._

 

 

 

“Yeah it is. Dan's great.” Louis' genuine smile was like flint in the space between them, ready to burst into flame. “It wasn't always easy you know? With Mark leaving and the girls but mum's really happy now.” Harry saw how his eyes darkened, saw them lose their innocent joy and become clouded with memories that both of them would rather forget.

 

“I'm glad.” He traced the rim of his cup, felt how brittle and used the china was. He took a sip and wanted to cry. Yorkshire. The taste of Louis' lips three years, two months and thirteen days ago.

 

Harry felt the silence, felt it prick at his skin.

 

“What exactly are you doing now, Harry?” Words, words, words. Why was Louis asking? Harry felt Louis' gaze on his coat, knew that Louis had no idea what kind of brand it was, but its value was as clear as day. The thick and rich fabric, heavy around Harry´s shoulders. Burberry. Something Harry had nicked from Zayn a long time ago, but he had never bothered asking for it back. It wasn't something Harry could afford on his own. But Louis' gaze told him that Louis thought he could. But why was he asking?

 

“I'm – “ He shrugged the coat off. Louis' eyes followed. “After the internship I got a job in the firm of one of the sub-executives. Nick Grimshaw? You might have heard of him? He had a line at Topman?” Harry didn't want to say too much. Didn't want to come off as too different, because they had become strangers too fast and it was ugly. Such a simple word but it fit so well. This was ugly, like silk on cashmere, like polka dot shirts on striped jeans.

 

Louis didn't show a reaction. Harry carried on. The words as heavy as wet birds.

 

“And well he, uhm, he took me under his wing and now I help out with designs and help the models and stuff. Sometimes Zayn – “ He interrupted himself when Louis' chuckled. “What?” He asked, probably a lot more defensive than he had any right to be.

 

“So you actually made it into the fashion world?” Louis' eyes felt like pin needles on his face. If he could just break eye contact once, so that Harry could breathe again.

 

“I did.”

 

Louis stood up, the glacier groaned under his weight. Harry would break.

 

He turned towards the sink and, maybe it was Harry's palimpsest mind, everything smudged and as thin as ice, but he could only stare at what he saw as petty defiance. Louis turned on the tap and started to wash the dishes. One by one, platter after platter, plastic cup after plastic cup. (With as many children as the Tomlinson household had always possessed, plastic cups were the only safe choice for any one involved.)

 

“Can I -” Harry had to cough. “Can I help?” What else was he supposed to offer?

 

The wings on Louis' back, his small shoulder blades, poking out from his spine, always ready to fly, shrugged listlessly.

 

So Harry grabbed a dish towel and took his place next to Louis, working in tandem. Louis small hands, more calloused than Harry remembered, soapy and soft, Harry's bigger hands, slower and shaking.

 

They worked together for a while and Harry felt the minutes dragging by as if someone painted them on his back, like a cold finger running down his spine. They didn't talk and Harry didn't try to change that. His mind was switching mind-numbingly from a chaotic stream of Louis, Louis then and Louis now, back to the almost calming blackness of panic.

 

He focused on the steady breathing of Louis next to him, focused on the short intakes of breath and the long exhales. If Harry didn't work together with Zayn who up to this day still got stage fright, he wouldn't have realized that Louis was concentrating on his breathing to calm down. But he heard the small moment of controlled stillness before he took another breath, and he focused on that small point of, dare he say, insecurity, to anchor himself to the moment. Louis was just as lost as he was.

 

And then Louis coughed.

 

“I'm-” He started and Harry froze, the plate he had been scrubbing down suspended in the air as he turned his head towards Louis, waiting just as breathlessly for him to continue.

 

“I'm working in Bobby Horan´s old record store. You know the one a bit up north?” Harry watched his Adam´s apple bob.

 

“I do. We used to -“ _Go there after school and dream ourselves into worlds full of music._ “I remember. That's nice. How is he?”

 

“Who?”

 

“Bobby.”

 

“Good.”

 

Harry nodded. He didn't know if he could count this as a win or not.

 

“Do you remember his sons? Greg and Niall?” Louis turned off the tap after rinsing the last glass. Soon Harry would have nothing to occupy his hands with.

 

“I think I do.” He mumbled and took the glass from Louis. “Didn't the younger one used to die his hair?” He remembered the Horans relatively well. They had moved to Doncaster from Ireland and in a community as small as here, new people were always greeted warmly and with a lot of buzz and gossip. Niall Horan had been one year under them, his brother Greg already going to college one town over. They had always seemed nice, although Harry couldn't say that he had been interested in them. He had never tried to make contact with them. Not even with Niall who he was now sure he had had shared a class with.

 

Hadn't he been the loud boy in his AP music class? Maybe he was projecting, maybe Niall Horan and him had never really crossed paths, but Harry remembered him and he was sure that if he hadn't been so wrapped up in everything Louis he could have found a friend in him.

 

“He still does.” Louis smiled. It took Harry a while to remember what Louis was referring to, but when he did and when he saw Louis' amused smile, he joined in and chuckled.

 

“Looked good on him.” Harry said and put the dish towel over a rag, turning towards Louis, who was still staring straight ahead.

 

“He's a nice guy.” He started and dropped his hands to his jeans, rubbing them over his thighs, drying them.

 

“I bet he is.”

 

Louis looked up.

 

“What I'm saying is...” He stuttered. “I'm saying that I'm doing fine Harry. You don't need to-” He didn't finish his sentence but Harry had an inkling as to what he wanted to say. You don't need to worry so much. You don't need to look at me like that. You don't need to think that I'm going to break.

 

Louis seemed to shrink in on himself as if he hadn't wanted to say that, but Harry understood. He understood and he still felt terrible.

 

“Lou,“ The nickname came easy. “I didn't mean to make you think that -”

 

“I'm doing good, yeah?” Louis interrupted him and maybe that was for he better. Harry didn't know what he had wanted to say. “I have a job I enjoy, I have friends, mum's happy, the girls and Ernest are well. You don't have to look at me like you need to apologize all the time. I'm fine. We're good.”

 

Harry stared. Maybe he had started this whole thing wrong. Maybe he had it all mixed up in his head again. But of course Louis was fine. Of course he was.

 

Harry hadn't been looking at Louis because he thought that he was going to break, but because he himself was about to rip apart. His skin was itching and he just hoped that he wouldn't burst, hoped that his stitches would hold and that his heart would get more time to heal.

 

Louis was fine. He was. He had always been the stronger of the two. Had always known how to pick himself up after falling down. And in the end, he wasn't the one who had lost everything that night, three years ago. He had lost a friend, he had, but he hadn't lost his first love, he hadn't lost his home, he hadn't lost his dignity, he hadn't left his heart on a kitchen floor, bleeding.

 

He had probably closed off the chapter 'Harry Styles' from his life the moment their lips had touched and the moment that Harry had shown that he had always been more. Louis had lost a friend when he had thrown the door shut behind Harry, but Harry had lost everything.

 

That was what it felt like.

 

“I wasn't going to apologize again.” Harry said.

 

“Of course you were.”

 

Of course he would have.

 

Harry moved towards the kitchen table again and sat down. He just needed a breather, he just needed to digest, to come back to his senses. They would be all right. Louis was good, they were good, and Harry would just need a bit more time, but everything would be okay again.

 

If Louis thought that it could be this easy, then who was Harry to make it difficult, to be the one to destroy it once again.

 

“You make everything sound so easy.” Harry mumbled and he didn't know if he had wanted to say it, didn't know if it made sense, but the words were out there now, wafting through the kitchen like all the dust particles that were dancing golden and flickery around Louis and he couldn't take them back.

 

 

 

“ _It is, Harry.” His voice was icy and Harry suddenly remembered his first time trying to ice skate and how the ice had prickled at his skin like a thousand needles, every time he had taken a tumble, trying to sew him into the ice of the lake, sew him over, make him become one with the deadly winter lake. With Louis it felt more as if Louis was trying to cut him out. Rip all the needles, everything that was holding him together out of him, make him fall apart._

 

“ _Give me one good reason why it wouldn't be. Come on, tell me, Harry. What could have possible made it that hard?”_

 

_Because I'm in love with you._

 

“ _This is all so new to me, Lou. This is all so scary and I thought, I don't know, maybe I thought that it wouldn't have to be real if I didn't tell you.”_

 

_Because I'm in love with you._

 

“ _Who else knows?” Louis asked, his arms crossed in front of his chest._

 

“ _My family -” He couldn't lie to Louis, not any more, so he stuttered out the rest and waited for hell to close in over him. “And Aidan and Ed, but that's not -”_

 

“ _Oh so I was the only one out of the loop? Poor little Louis, better not tell him that you're prancing off to London, becoming all big and famous.”_

 

_Harry balled his hands into fists and tried not to lash out at Louis, he was the one who was in the wrong here, he couldn't lash out, he wouldn't._

 

“ _That's not – That's not the same. They are not you, they don't mean as much to me as you do. Louis you're...”_

 

_And suddenly Louis became small again, suddenly Harry could see Louis' deflating, his sternum practically falling into his chest, falling onto his wildly beating heart, and he watched as Louis' arms fell down to his sides again._

 

“ _You don't make sense Harry. So you didn't tell me because I mean a lot to you? Where's the logic in that?”_

 

_Harry wasn't sure, but he didn't think that Louis sounded accusing or even angry any more._

 

“ _It makes sense. It makes sense because -” Louis' eyes wandered up to Harry's face, his eyelashes the colour of liquid gold and his eyes watery behind them. Harry couldn't just tell him. “Louis you're everything to me.” Was all he could give._

 

_Louis shook his head and sighed. The sound hitting Harry in the chest like a bodily push. Louis sounded tired._

 

“ _I still don't understand, but I guess I don't have to, right Harry? When are you leaving? In a few days, weeks, or do I get another month or two?”_

 

“ _A month.“ Harry breathed and his lungs collapsed._

 

_The sun was still shining outside, the feeling of summer still heavy in the air, but Louis looked like a rainy day, grey and cloudy and Harry wanted to soak him up, to get all the muddy puddles of misery out of Louis' pores and get his Louis back. The one who would always manage to smile and the one that would bloom under Harry's attention like spring roses._

 

“ _So what does it matter right?” Louis chuckled, and the sound reminded Harry oddly of waves scraping against cliffs too high to climb, but perfect for flying, flinging, fateful good byes._

 

“ _What are you saying?” Harry asked. “Do you want to...are you breaking up with me?” Wrong words, Harry noted, but couldn't really concentrate further on it, because everything about this was wrong. How much damage could a few misplaced words do?_

 

“ _Harry come on, you're leaving in a month, what do you want me to say? Want me to hold your hand throughout the entire process and tell you that we won't ever lose contact? Because I can't.”_

 

“ _Can't or won't?” Harry whispered and eye contact seemed so utterly important but also entirely painful right now._

 

“ _Wake up Harry, how on earth are we supposed to keep in contact? We will have two completely different schedules, you'll be busy making new friends -” His voice broke, a choked off sound followed by a heavy silence. “Better say how it is now and get it over with.”_

 

“ _But we're Harry and Louis.” Things that Harry had always seen as the roots of his personality, the fundament of everything Harry, was suddenly reduced to last straws, things he was desperately holding on to so that he wouldn't drown._

 

“ _Exactly.” Louis sighed and suddenly the world seemed to shift. “It's not going to work, Harry because of what – of how we are together. We haven't spend more than two days apart for the past nine years.”_

 

_Harry still didn't understand. Wasn't that why it would work?_

 

_Louis barrelled on, words over words just – explaining. Harry shied away from the logic behind it all. He wanted into fashion not the freaking space programme. He knew when something felt right, not why it was not supposed to exist._

 

“ _So you want me to ignore you for the next month, so that you can what? Get used to me not being around?” Harry didn't know if his words sounded harsh or if he had managed to portray the unbearable fear in his heart._

 

_Louis nodded. Shook his head. Opened his mouth and closed it again. His arms wound themselves around his middle and he bit his bottom lip. “I don't know Harry. I don't…. I just wish you would have told me sooner.”_

 

“ _So that you could have started ignoring me four months ago? Well I am damn happy that I lied to you then.”_

 

_Louis blanched and shook his head again. Harry felt inexplicable anger rise up inside of him. What was this push and pull Louis was trying to establish? Harry thought he had known what had made Louis angry, thought he could understand his anger, his pain and his confusion, but he couldn't any more. There was just a hazy red film over his eyes now, telling him that Louis was also playing with foul cards._

 

“ _Why can't you believe in us? Of course it's going to be hard to stay close, but we can make it work! I'm moving to London not to the end of the world.”_

 

“ _Because Harry!” Louis snapped._

 

“ _What are you, Louis, twelve?”_

 

 

 

Louis giggled.

 

“It is what it is, isn't Harry?The best way to stop this –“ He moved his hand between Harry and himself, his wrist light and delicate. “Is to lay it to rest. Let's not dwell on our teenage failings.”

 

Harry tried to swallow past his dry throat and nodded, put on a smile. “You´re right.”

 

And suddenly the night stopped moving in slow-motion and the golden tinsel of dust wasn't noticeable any more as it picked up speed and danced into invisibility. Louis sat down next to him again, his hands still a little bit damp from the sink, his calloused fingers, that shimmered slightly from residue soap, were folded neatly on the table.

 

Harry wasn't sure how much of it was fake and how much of it was actual, genuine conversation between two old friends catching up, but for a moment he allowed his brain to not care about it. It was good. They talked more about themselves, they talked more about what the other one had missed of their respective lives, and they talked about what made them happy. They talked about morning routines, they talked about favourite cafés, favourite films and new friends.

 

Harry allowed himself to share information about the friends he had made over the years, friends who had helped him fix himself, friends who had never talked bad about Louis, no matter how often Harry had drunkenly cursed his entire existence, because they had known just as much as himself, that Louis would always be someone important in his life, and damning him to hell wouldn't change that. They were the ones who had brought him aspirin and water the next morning and had offered cuddles without commentary, cuddles that allowed Harry to cry without having to explain.

 

These things, of course, he didn't tell Louis. He told him about how Zayn came into his life and how they had perfected their friendship to work on the runway and at home. He told him about Liam, Zayn´s, well, Harry guessed soul mate was the right description. There were anecdotes about these two and them three, just careless glances into Harry´s life.

 

Louis listened carefully, his eyes never leaving Harry´s, as Harry expanded on a story about Nick´s childish demands for Egyptian silk and whatnot, and how Zayn had always helped him deliver even the craziest ideas before the deadline. Apparently models had connections far more valuable than any designer could ever hope for.

 

He also expanded on a story about how Liam, working in electrics and sometimes helping with the stage lighting for different runway shows, used to put double beams on Zayn so that his spotlight formed into flimsy hearts, before he realized that Zayn couldn't see them and stopped.

 

And on the other hand, Harry kept silent and listened with almost obsessive focus to Louis' stories that suddenly seemed to flow out of him. Sometimes Harry still thought that it might be a tactic, that Louis was over-sharing, rather than trying to go back to a place where everything could be all right again, but he still listened. Because Louis was still Louis and Harry wanted to know everything he had to offer.

 

Be it how Dan had come into the family, and how Louis had initially had problems to even conceal his obvious contempt, but how he had grown on him as he saw how his mother had finally opened up again, and as he had watched how her smiles had become more frequent.

 

Or maybe it were the stories of how Louis had stumbled across Niall one day, and how they had become fast friends in a matter of weeks. Maybe it was the sparkle in Louis' eyes when he talked about the record store. _His_ record store, as he referred to it and Harry wanted to know when he had started seeing it as something that belonged to him, maybe even something that he would call home, but he didn't yet know what this conversation meant, where the lines were drawn, and he was too scared about crossing them.

 

For a while Louis talked about his siblings, a rare sparkle in his eyes as he mentioned Doris and Ernest, a sparkle reserved only for babies as Harry knew well enough. Louis loved his siblings all equally, but babies, no matter if they were blood related or not, had always turned Louis into a small galaxy, all blinding and full of stars, and sometimes Harry blamed that face, with the crinkly eyes and upturned lips for falling for his best friend. Because surely no one could not fall for soft beauty like that.

 

With a surprised nod, Harry took in the comments about Louis looking for a new apartment and, trying to sound supportive, he made jokes about his own first apartment hunt. Louis' eyes darkened slightly and in the back of Harry's mind he recalled a talk they had had about moving in together.

 

But that had been so long ago, and Louis had claimed to be fine, so Harry shook off his bad feelings and smiled encouragingly at Louis once more.

 

The night seemed to dance with them and when they took their final turn, one joyful spin, slightly slower than the rest, dragged down by exhaustion, they saw that the sun was beginning to rise.

 

Their laughter became breathless and echoed and their movements became honey slow, but Harry still didn't want to go. Didn't even know how he was supposed to say good bye, or how he could ask for one more day, and maybe even a third. How could he ask for Louis back? He had never known how to ask for more.

 

“Maybe I should -” He said and interrupted himself quickly when he noticed that Louis had wanted to speak, his hands were holding onto the desk, his knuckles turning white.

 

“It's getting late, Harry.” It sounded weary. As if the warmth and silliness and plain unpredictable feeling of the nightdrained away with every inch that the sun conquered of the night sky _._ “The kids are going to be up soon, maybe you should -”

 

“Leave, I know.”

 

Louis' eyes flicked up to him quickly before they fell back down to the table.

 

“Maybe.”

 

Harry stood up, still as slow as mornings like this demanded, with the magnetic swirl of artificial lighting and orange dawn, and grabbed his coat. The rich material heavy on his tired arms.

 

“Can I come back?”

 

Louis' shoulders shook and if Harry could see his face, he would see small crinkles around his eyes, belying the deep cuts of purple the night had scratched beneath them.

 

“I work in the record store tomorrow night. Or I guess today. You should come by.”

 

Harry smiled.

 

Louis didn't look up.

 

“Thank you.”

 

Apologies came in many forms tonight. And Harry knew that Louis knew, what his 'thank you' truly meant.

 

 

When Harry stepped outside the street was slick with morning dew, the stars he had seen rolling beneath his feet hours before, were crawling away to make place for golden syrup galaxies. But he didn't look to the ground on the way home, not any more. He kept his head held high and thought of tonight.

 

His mother greeted him at the door when he rang - the day had not yet passed 6 o'clock - in her morning coat and two tea cups in her hand. Her eyes were big and questioning, but when she took him in, from head to toe, she pulled him into a crushing embrace, and Harry saw a fleeting smile touch her lips.

 

“Is everything okay?” She asked as she ushered him inside and sat him down on the couch. He shrugged and wiggled out of his coat, leaving it crumbled on the floor, wet with pearls of mist.

 

There was a moment of silence between the two.

 

The mother who had seen her son come home with dried tears on his shirt, snot running down his nose, and his eyes red rimmed and swollen. The mother who had kissed his forehead good night at 3am, when sleep had finally overtaken the shaking and trembling body of a boy with a broken heart. The mother who had seen her son off to London, three weeks before his school started, without questioning his motives further, trusting him to open up about the nights spent sobbing into his pillows, when he was ready for it. The mother who had never mentioned Louis again, after she had seen her son flinch one too many times at his name. The mother who had always known of the love her son possessed for the loud, loud boy, but who had never said anything.

 

And the mother who held her boy in the morning hours, knowing only by touch alone, by the clammy feel of her son´s temple and his racing heartbeat, where he had been.

 

And the boy. The man. The one whose mouth was dry and whose tongue was heavy from talking through the night, whose shoulders were weary from the guilt he still carried everyday. The man who had spent every day of his life since he was 9 years old loving a boy who wasn't his to claim. The man who had found happiness in mediocrity, but still strived for the all consuming love he knew one could feel. The man who was sitting on a couch at home - home as in the place where he would tiptoe down the stairs in the middle of the night to steal a cookie, and that held all the moments in between that had made him grow up - without knowing since when that particular picture was hanging on the wall, because he hadn't been home in three years, two months and thirteen days.

 

“I still love him.” He whispered and the crook of his mother´s neck suddenly was the best hiding place in the world.

 

One hand carded through his hair, one hand gripped his elbow, one voice whispered 'I know' and two worlds full of badly kept secrets crumbled.

 

“Tell me what happened.”

 

 

 

_It was never supposed to be this way._

 

_Never ever was it supposed to be this way. There should not be so much space between their bodies. There should never be words thrown at each other that were this immature, and never were they supposed to hurt each other._

 

“ _You're the child, Styles, if you think that we can make this work with, I don't know what you probably call it in your head, with our unbreakable bond.” The sarcasm was like a poisonous snake that slithered across the kitchen tiles towards Harry, sinking its lethal teeth slowly into his calves, rendering him immobile, the poison spreading to his heart and head, spreading across his chest and his arms, and leaking out of his eyes in its purest form._

 

_He cried._

 

“ _Stop twisting my words.” He choked out and pushed an accusing finger in Louis' direction. “Don't make fun of me. I know that we could survive this.” Harry knew he had lost his ground when he saw Louis' eyes widen at the use of the subjunctive. Nothing was certain any more._

 

“ _Because we are Harry and Louis?” Louis mocked, but Harry saw how his hands tightened into fists at his sides, and he knew that all battles were practically over. There was only hurt left, and the remains of defiance that tried to cover up the worst wounds._

 

“ _No, because -” And Harry knew that it was now or never. Speak now or forever hold your peace, a phrase Harry had heard too often to take it seriously, a phrase so over used in romantic comedies, and YA novels that he didn't consider it sincere any more, nor did he believe in the romantic crescendo that would follow. Didn't see it in the world of possibilities, that one simple person, standing up and pleading, could turn around a whole wedding, could destroy and build a new life. But he would try to get this legato of never ending emptiness come up for air and he would plead._

 

“ _Because I love you.”_

 

“ _I love you too Hazza, what does it matter?”_

 

_It took Harry way too long to realize the mistake in his wording. To realize that, of course Louis loved him. Neither one of them had ever doubted the other one's commitment to each other. No one had ever felt the need to do so. It had always been clear as day that they were best friends. But the longing Harry wanted to express, the hidden moon in everyone's summer sky, was not about love in the way that Louis understood it. It was about being 'in love'. And god was Harry head over heels._

 

_He took a step towards the boy in front of him, who was still protecting his wounds with walls and who jutted his chin out in almost a childish expression of resistance._

 

“ _No, Louis, I am in love with you.” He merely whispered it, but Louis blanched as if Harry had screamed. And he wanted to. Scream his lungs free of the glue that was slowly settling inside of him._

 

“ _No you're not.” Louis shook his head and grabbed his forearms so hard that his knuckles turned white and that tendons and veins criss-crossed his golden hands. They looked like the battle fields of Troy, as if years and years of misery had soaked his skin and made it seem used and ugly, even though the earth itself had never done any wrong. Louis had never done anything wrong, but he looked beaten and weary and most of all scared and, Harry glanced down at his hands again, clamped so tightly around Louis' middle, scarred._

 

“ _What?”_

 

“ _You're not in love with me.” Louis' voice got stronger and colder with every word._

 

“ _Why are you saying that? Louis come on, I love you.” The way Harry stressed the last three words, there was no room for misinterpretations any more. Harry had loved Louis since he was 9. And now Louis knew._

 

“ _No. Harry. No.”_

 

_Harry recoiled. His face was ashen when realization struck him. He was in love with a boy, with Louis. Maybe in Louis's eyes he was simply gay and Louis didn't want – didn't like – would never-_

 

_Funnily enough Harry had never spared a thought to any label, had never considered loving anyone else, but now that he had Louis' stormy face in front of him, his No´s echoing between his ears, now he realized what it all might mean._

 

“ _I'm still me. And you love me, you do.” Harry choked out. “I'm not -” Gay, he thought, but maybe he was. Maybe Louis would hate him for it._

 

_Somehow Louis said the same thing, but it still cut Harry deeper than anything he had thrown at him before. “I'm not – like that. I'm not gay, Harry. You can't be in love with me.”_

 

_A strangled “but I am” left Harry´s lips before he could think better of it. He was, he couldn't deny it any longer, but suddenly this confession felt dirty and gritty and maybe it was something he should have never said._

 

_Harry could only watch as Louis opened his mouth again, his lips moving fast and aggressively, there were angry lines running down his forehead, there was a flare in his nostrils. For Harry everything had lost colour, he saw everything only in a colourless blue, like staring into the bottom of a lake, but he guessed that Louis was red._

 

_And he wanted to be violet. Wanted to be HarryandLouis again._

 

_He still didn't know what Louis was saying, if Louis was waiting to be interrupted, if he was asking questions or if there was only malignity spewed across the kitchen, but he knew that he wanted him to stop._

 

_Growing up with two strong women around him he had often been roped into discussions about respect, equality and mistaken romance, he had been educated on the subject of wrong kisses, kisses that were shown in films. The kind of kisses that were supposed to be powerful, passionate and beautiful. Kisses that ended fights and choked off words, kisses that ended in pliantness and mournful sighs._

 

_He had learned to ask. No matter the gender, no matter the situation. He had listened, he had understood, he had learned._

 

_Sometimes he would talk about this with Louis. There had been many sleepovers where Harry had nudged Louis with his foot, their calves brushing, their breaths entangled, and Louis had turned his head towards him, nudging him back._

 

_And Harry had asked him about how he imagined his first kiss, or any kiss, he just wanted to know. He remembered the butterflies in his stomach, the feeling of flying and falling cancelling each other out, until he felt only boneless and empty. Ready to soak up anything Louis would say. And Louis had said, with a lazy smile around his lips and his hand brushing over Harry´s curls, he had said that he would want to be kissed passionately, that he wanted to feel the power of want behind the lips of his counterpart, he had said that he wanted to feel the beauty of being held just by their lips touching. He had said so much and Harry had just stared._

 

_His lips had started to tingle and he had asked about what he thought about the opposite. If he could imagine if his partner wanted the same thing, but couldn't ask for it. What if both had to become pliant before one could ask for the other, before one would take what the other couldn't give._

 

_It had been late, the stars had already stopped shining and everything had been caught up in the stillness of grey twilight._

 

_And at first Louis had laughed at him. Had said that passion didn't question._

 

_But when Harry hadn't answered he had relented. And with a soft whisper, Louis had admitted._

 

“ _I would want to be asked. I think a kiss is not about a give or take. No one should have the upper hand. I would want to be asked and then I don't know, Hazza. Why are we even talking about this?”_

 

_And yet. In spite of all these memories flooding his brain, Harry wanted to press himself against Louis, he wanted to rake his hands through his hair and he wanted to kiss him. Kiss him silent, make him pliant. He wanted to unwind those fists and he wanted to stop time, because with very passing minute, Harry felt Louis disappear from him._

 

_And he still wanted to be violet._

 

“ _Lou,“ He whispered, but Louis didn't react. Harry took a step towards him, but apart from holding up a hand, Louis didn't stop his tirade and Harry suddenly felt every word punch through his skin. He needed to shield himself. He needed to stop the constant hail of arrows that pierced his skin and snapped his heartstrings in two._

 

“ _Lou,” Harry repeated and suddenly Louis' eyes snapped up to him. Harry closed the gap between them._

 

_It came naturally to him, to press his hands against Louis's cheeks, tilting his head up against his lips, as they descended upon his. It seemed right somehow, when Harry breathed onto his lips with shaky reverence, and when he nudged his nose against Louis' cheek as he tilted his head to the side. It felt like syrup dripping into each other, swirling together and becoming one without a question. And Louis tasted like liquid gold, like cinnamon and syrup and Yorkshire tea, like soft mornings and silver light._

 

_It took Harry a few seconds to realize that Louis' lips remained tightly closed and hard, it took him a few seconds to see, that everything had been a mistake._

 

_Shaking, he pulled back, his eyes flickering from Louis' lips to his eyes and back again. They were slightly damp and redder than usual, as if all of his blood had run to his lips, as if Louis' body had wanted to feel everything of Harry. As if he wanted to experience the feeling of being held by lips alone._

 

_Stuttering through his breathing, Harry slowly lowered his hands, his thumbs tracing lines over Louis' face. Louis' eyelids were fluttering, his body lax, and Harry had never seen anything more beautiful._

 

_And suddenly Louis opened his eyes again and lunged. His chest collided with Harry's with an audible 'thud' and his arms wound around Harry's neck with a force that made Harry gasp, his posture topple, and that crashed him into the body in front of him._

 

_There was less marvel in Louis' kiss. Where Harry had looked for Louis' breath, to feel him exhale into Harry´s lungs, Louis seemed to look for something else. Instead of waiting for Harry to react, he had put it upon himself to get it for himself. Where his lips had been hard before, they were now prodding and hungry, soft and sweet only when he felt the need to reward. Harry could taste Louis in his every cell. There was nothing left to distinguish red from blue, they had both become colour-blind, they were both just grasping and grabbing at each other, trying to stay violet._

 

_And then Louis pushed Harry away, their lips separating with a smack, their chests heaving._

 

_Startled Harry searched Louis' eyes for an explanation. But with his eyes as hazy as they were, he wasn't sure what he saw._

 

_He saw Louis' lips glisten with saliva, he saw his tussled hair, he saw the wrinkles in his shirt and he took notice of the slow drag of his eyelashes, that swept over his dilated eyes._

 

_He saw Louis' hands at his side, turned into fists, and he saw how Louis bit down on his lip, the white indentations that he left behind in such stark contrast to his freshly kissed lips, that Harry shivered._

 

_He saw someone who was overcome by emotions and someone who was trying his damn best to reign them all in. He saw someone who was lost in the feeling of being close to someone and he saw someone winning back his composure._

 

_He saw someone at war._

 

“ _You need to leave.” Louis spit out. His fist clenching and unclenching rhythmically._

 

“ _Louis, I'm sorry.” Was he though? Hadn't Louis kissed him back? Pulled him down? Claimed him?_

 

“ _Get out, Harry.”_

 

“ _Please let us at least talk about this, Louis.” Harry pleaded, not really understanding how far he had cornered Louis, how serious he was about his commands of Harry having to leave._

 

“ _No we really, really don't, Harry.” His voice was cold and hard, intended to keep himself in check and to keep Harry away._

 

_Harry tried to get Louis' attention one more time: “Louis -”. And Louis snapped._

 

“ _Get out, get out, get out!”_

 

_Suddenly there were hands on Harry again, but instead of pulling him into Louis, they were pushing him away. They were pushing him back._

 

_Harry stumbled._

 

“ _Get out, Harry. I don't want you here any more! Have fun in London, but stay away from me!” Louis hissed and kept his hands firmly on Harry´s chest, pushing him towards the front door._

 

“ _I know how you feel, Lou.” Harry argued and grabbed one of Louis' delicate wrists, entangling their fingers. “We can talk about this. You kissed me.” Somehow Harry still had wonders in his eyes, but Louis didn't listen._

 

“ _The fuck do you know about my feelings, Harry? I didn't kiss you back. I -” Louis's struggled, his eyes zeroing in on their entwined fingers, his voice getting lost in the emptiness of the kitchen. He wrenched his hand back. “Just go home, Harry.” He sounded weary, his voice soft and almost defeated and Harry felt himself submit. He felt himself stop fighting. If Louis sounded tired, Harry didn't want to know how his own voice carried through the room. Exhaustion and the empty feeling of loss were tearing him down, and Louis was still – physically so – pushing him away._

 

_When the doorknob finally made contact with his spine, a sharp and short pain, he knew that it was over._

 

“ _Can I come back to say good bye?” Harry whispered nonetheless, wanting to hold onto anything Louis would grant him._

 

“ _No, I don't want to see you again. Ever.” Louis looked up, made eye contact, and something died inside of Harry. Those eyes were cold and assessing, they were weary but sharp, and they were full of anger. The last emotion swirling in their distant blue colour like oil in water. Deadly beautiful._

 

_Harry didn't know where he took his courage from, but he had to say it one more time, it was almost compulsory, far from brave and far from selfless._

 

“ _I love you.”_

 

_Louis held the eye contact, didn't flinch and didn't blink._

 

_The door behind Harry was wrenched open and he stumbled out. The day was coming to an end and the road was alight with street lamps, their light still fighting for first place against the orange sun._

 

“ _Fuck you.”_

 

_The door fell shut._

 

 

 

“Should I close the door, honey?” Anne asked and Harry nodded weakly, his cheek chafing on the freshly washed comforter, the soft flutter of fabric already lulling him to sleep.

 

“Thank you, Mum.” He whispered, fighting against the bitterness in his mouth, as he lifted a hand to his eye, rubbing on the back of his lid. They felt parched and dry and swollen and Harry hadn't even known that he still had so many tears left.

 

“Get some sleep, sweetie.” She whispered and the door closed with silent finality.

 

Turning onto his other side, Harry tried to block everything out that had happened over the past 12 hours. He tried to push every memory of Louis away, tried to suffocate the thought of him by squeezing his eyes shut until they hurt, until white strokes of light flashed behind his closed eyes and he had to open them again.

 

Louis wasn't easily banned from his mind though. It had never been easy.

 

Tonight, Harry still smelled Louis on himself, he smelled the kitchen, and the hypnotizing smell of Louis after a hard day´s work. It was intoxicating, that mixture of a lingering morning shower, the remains of different perfumes, pressed onto him with hugs and goodbyes and by sharing the same living space with a horde of girls, and the insignificant but distinct smell of sweat. Not displeasing, just _there_.

 

Harry could feel Louis in the burn of his eyes and how they wouldn't stop overflowing with tears and he felt Louis in the hollow of his chest, more pronounced tonight than it had been in the past three years.

 

Maybe he shouldn't have come back.

 

He rolled onto his back. The soft ticking sound of his alarm reminding him that in less than six hours, he would get up again, get ready and go back to him.

 

It had never been a choice.

 

His mum had told him as much, when he had broken down in her arms just now. She had carded her fingers through his hair, had pressed kisses to his temple, had held him tightly and had said, that a love like that wasn't down to choice.

 

“No one's to blame, Harry.” She had whispered, lacing their fingers together. “You were both too young to understand what you were doing. He was scared, you were about to leave, and you both love each other too much. It's going to be all right now.”

 

Love each other. Present tense.“He doesn't love me.”

 

Anne had stayed silent. Her chest rising and falling beneath Harry's cheek, her hand squeezing his more forcefully than before.

 

“You should get some rest, Harry.”

 

And here he was. Not smarter than before, and maybe just as broken.

 

 

The alarm woke him up with a start.

 

Trying to silence his ringtone and to get himself out of his blankets proofed to be more difficult than he remembered, but when he had finally freed himself – he was lying face down on the floor – and had managed to grab his alarm – it might have shattered – he was awake at least.

 

His eyes still felt like burned sandpaper, but he knew in his heart that seeing Louis tonight would be good for him. His mother might have disagreed with him, after seeing him so completely broken this morning, but, strangely enough, he now saw last night more as cathartic than harmful.

 

So Louis was fine and Louis was strong, who's to say that Harry couldn't profit from that?

 

Rubbing his eyes, Harry walked to the shower with creaking joints. He could smell his parents' dinner downstairs and wondered in an absent part of his brain, if he would be able to eat dinner right now, even though his biological clock was dead set on morning.

 

Freshly showered, with his hair still dripping down onto his shoulders, Harry walked back to his room, where the soft evening sun greeted him almost mockingly. He dressed, put his hair into a bun and walked back downstairs. It felt mechanical almost to get ready, but what else was he supposed to do? This wasn't a date, this wasn't a meeting between friends, this was solely his second chance at showing Louis that he had become a different man, someone, that might be worth loving once again.

 

Not stopping long enough to get roped into conversation downstairs, Harry soon left the house, his heart pounding louder than his feet, as he jogged down the street.

 

The old record store had always been a childish get away of Louis and him. It had been their place when they had been teenagers, the place where they would hang out after school, thinking that they were cool.

 

The dingy smell of old vinyl records and the suffocating smell of plastic wrapped CDs had been the background of many stories Harry and Louis had whispered to each other, hidden away in the far off corner of the shop. Bobby Horan had always let them be, he had let them giggle their way to the back under the illusion that he didn't see them lurk around his shop without buying anything, had only smiled indulgently when they had come in or when they had left.

 

Sometimes, usually around Christmas, he would also sneak two lollipops into their jackets, but he still had never said anything.

 

Harry had always counted that as a blessing. Even as a fourteen year old love struck fool, he had been able to make himself belief, that Bobby Horan truly couldn't see them, and that Louis and himself were invisible, cloaked up in their own little world.

 

Now he thought about what kind of man Bobby Horan might be today. Was he generally this taciturn or had he truly understood that the two weird kids in his shop had wanted to be ignored? More importantly, how did Louis talk with Bobby today? Was the past ignored? Were they colleagues? Was Louis just catalogued away as a friend of Niall's?

 

How did Harry fit into all of this?

 

His feet kept hitting the pavement as if to force his thoughts into another round. Go, go, go. What else could have change? But Harry didn't allow it to go on and slowed his movements, tried to walk as slowly as possible. Maybe he should avoid the cracks in the pavement?

 

Before long, the record shop came into view and Harry´s steps faltered.

 

There was Louis, leaning against the counter, so Harry could only see parts of his profile, but it was enough to see the smile that played across his face, and then there were the blonde tips of spiky hair, just barely visible behind a stack of old vinyl records, which Harry assumed must be Niall. Niall who was making Louis laugh as if last night hadn't happened.

 

Harry tried to blend out the feelings that bubbled up inside him. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the break in his sleeping schedule, but apparently the trap doors and locks and dead ends he had built over the years had come undone and everything he was feeling, no matter how insignificant or inconvenient, came rushing to his head.

 

Jealousy was the most pronounced right now, immediately followed by guilt, and then the well-known sliver of anxiety.

 

He pushed open the shop´s door and let himself be engulfed by the stuffy scent of dust. Shuffling his feet, he walked into the shop, feeling two pairs of eyes on him, all the way up until he was, too, standing at the counter. Still separated by the glass counter, but close enough for passers-by to think him one of them.

 

“Hi.” Louis said, the first one to break the silence. “You came.”

 

“I did.” He cleared his throat. “Did you get some sleep?”

 

Louis' eyes were almost grey from the milky film of exhaustion that covered them, but he smiled through it, and shook his head. “No, I had the girls to look after. Anyway, Harry meet Niall. Niall meet Harry.”

 

“Hiya, Harry!” Niall chirped and reached for Harry´s hand. Did he know? Had Louis told him? “Very good to finally meet you. Although I gotta be honest, I feel like I know you already, what with how much - “ He grunted, moving away from Louis, who was rocking back and forth on his toes innocently. “How much, you know, uhm, my Dad talked about you.”

 

“Bobby? Bobby talks about me?” Harry felt a sudden vertigo take over his world.

 

Before Niall could so much as blink, Louis had shoved him behind him and swatted his hand about as if he were trying to get rid of a particularly annoying fly. “Never mind that, Harry. Let's talk business.”

 

Business seemed to include extensive conversations about favourite bands and records, as well as a heated debate about the correct way to take of a shirt, by tugging it over the neck or by grabbing it by the stomach and pulling it upwards. And Harry had no idea how that topic even came up, but for one he would bet all his money on Niall, who, from the beginning had been dead set on making Harry feel welcome, and secondly, you would never find Harry complaining, because this felt like home.

 

 

 

“ _Shsh.” Louis held a hand against Harry´s mouth, his eyes sparkling with mischief as he bit his own lip to keep quiet. “No one can hear us, Harry. We are undercover!”_

 

“ _Course we are.” Harry mumbled against Louis palm, the soft skin of his hand tasting a little bit like sweat and cranberry cupcakes._

 

_Louis nodded solemnly and removed his hand, taking Harry´s hand in his instead. Their hands were big on both of them, teenage hands, that were big and sinewy, a promise to the years to come. And yet still, Harry´s hand engulfed Louis' completely._

 

_Nowhere near stealthy, a task that was impossible in itself, considering that the shop´s counter was directly in front of the door, they tip-toed into Bobby Horan´s old store and hid behind the different shelves, before they stopped in the last aisle._

 

_Their chests were puffed out and big, trying to contain all their laughter and giggles, every cell strumming with adrenalin._

 

_Shaking with happiness, they sat down, either one of the boys with their back to a shelve, their legs tangled in front of them._

 

“ _So Harry, where will you take us today?”_

 

_Harry smiled knowingly and reached up to the stocked up records above him. With all the effort he could muster at the moment, Harry tried to keep a straight face, as he pulled down a stack of CDs, his eyes glinting mischievously at the boy in front of him._

 

_Glancing down at the cover in his lap, he laughed, slapping a hand in front of his mouth to silence his shrieks._

 

“ _You're terrible at being stealthy, Styles.” Louis remarked dryly, but Harry could see his eyes shine fondly at him, and he knew that their proneness for stealth had never been the reason for their afternoons in here._

 

“ _Mr. Tomlinson, please fasten your seatbelt, we are going to hell.”_

 

_And with a giggle Harry turned his album cover around so that Louis could see all the beauty of Black Sabbath's Born Again. And then it was Louis' turn to howl with laughter. Neither of them cared._

 

 

 

“So Harry, Louis tells me that you work in the fashion world?” Niall was leaning on the counter, his foot propped onto the ankle of the other, making him sway to and fro and little bit. But he was determined and kept his stance. Harry understood what Louis saw in him.

 

“Uhm yeah. I do.” He allowed himself a glance at Louis, who seemed unperturbed.

 

“That's amazing, man. So you work with models and the like?” He asked and waggled his eyebrows exaggeratively.

 

“Niall, oh my god stop!” Louis' laugh was as always beautiful and Harry wanted to bathe in it. Sometimes, but only sometimes, he thought about turning Louis' laugh into fabric. Maybe it would glide over his skin just as beautifully, maybe it would be one of those expensive fabrics that were always cold to the touch, like silk maybe, maybe it would evoke the same goosebumps Harry had running up and down his arms right now.

 

But then, he thought, then he would only have the sound. He would have cut the sound off from the laughter lines, the teasingly exposed throat, the bright eyes and pointy teeth, that so rarely were on display like now. And then he reconsidered. And he stopped. Because some fabrics were not worth the hassle.

 

“You are never going to pull a model, Niall.” Louis continued giggling, and playfully shoved his friend, who immediately lost his footing and stumbled along the counter, searching for purchase.

 

“I mainly work with male models at the moment anyway, so...” Harry shrugged carelessly and Niall deflated visibly, apparently Louis' teasing jab hadn't bothered him in the slightest, but this did.

 

“Well, forget it then. Gonna get me a nice girl to settle down with from here, then. All girls are beautiful, you know?” He laughed good-naturedly, but Harry still couldn't keep his mouth shut.

 

“So are the boys. Don't knock it till you try it.”

 

Niall´s eyes widened and Harry could have sworn that his eyes flickered to Louis for a split second.

 

“Not for me, mate. But I guess you're right. Whatcha say, Tommo?” Niall knocked his elbow into Louis' side and smiled as big as the grand canyon. Harry had no idea why.

 

“Cut it out, Niall.” Louis' chest expanded with a heavy breath and his fingers trembled gently before he stuffed them into his pockets.

 

“Always such a sour wolf, this one.” Niall remarked with an almost apologetic shimmer in his eyes, as he regarded Harry with a soft tilt to his head.

 

Harry could only shrug, because he couldn't talk in phrases like 'always' about Louis any more. He only knew bits and pieces of dried gravel of a road that he had never walked before. Maybe once all those years ago, maybe you could still find dried in foot steps on side roads if you looked, maybe Harry would represent a street sign in his haphazardly thrown together metaphor, but now he only saw glimmering pavement, that blend into the skyline and he didn't know when Louis would take a turn. Niall apparently thought too much of him.

 

“Isn't it time for a break, Nialler?”

 

The room vibrated with Niall´s chuckle. “Was gonna close now actually, you fucker.”

 

And so they did and then suddenly Harry found himself on the street with Louis by his side, both shivering slightly in the wet summer night´s air, as they had both forgone a jacket in the hopes to save enough sunlight in their skin, for them to not need one.

 

Niall had disappeared in the flat above the store with a loud cackle, wishing them a good night with many expletives mixed into his good bye.

 

The silence that stretched on between Harry and Louis seemed even more deafening in comparison.

 

“It was nice of you to come here today.” “Niall seems really nice.” They both said at the same time, and their responding blushes could probably light up whole nations.

 

Louis shuffled his feet, and Harry, Harry couldn't bother to drag his eyes up to his face, being content to watch Louis' feet dance awkwardly over the pavement.

 

“I don't know if I told you this Harry, but - “

 

Harry let his eyes wander to Louis' ankles. They were on full display, looking soft and almost too delicate to hold Louis' bones, where Louis had rolled up his jeans. In the dim light of the street lamps, Harry could make out the soft lines of a drawing, maybe a tattoo?

 

“I missed you, too.”

 

Harry´s eyes snapped up, and for a split second, he didn't care how shocked he looked. He didn't care that his desperation, that longing to hear Louis say just that, was written in the harsh but hazy look in his eyes and the slackness of his posture.

 

It was probably fair to say, that Harry should have expected to see Louis' skin shrink back over him, pulling him as taut as a bow again, but he still felt oddly hollow as he watched Louis retreat back in on himself.

 

But that was before Louis' words came tumbling out of him, as if he were trying to trick Harry out of his siege.

 

“I just don't want you to feel like I didn't, because I do, Harry. I missed you a lot!” He laughed humourlessly. “And then you just stood there on my door step, and the first thing you say, the first proper thing you say to me, is that you missed me. I didn't want to just stand there, made a proper fool of myself probably, didn't I?” He laughed but it still sounded forced.

 

Maybe his skin had shrunk too much, maybe his diaphragm was pulled too thin. Harry wanted Louis to become big again, he wanted Louis to grow into his own skin, maybe even grow into Harry, because that seemed to be the only place, where Louis was holding back. “I really did miss you. I am very glad that you decided to come back after all those -”

 

“Three years, two months and thirteen days.” Harry mumbled and swayed beneath the night sky. He wanted nothing more than to tumble into Louis, whose eyes widened almost comically at Harry´s interruption.

 

“Yeah, yeah, exactly.” He rubbed his knuckles against his sternum. Harry feared that he could feel his midriff exert itself, maybe he could feel himself shrink and grow?

 

“Thank you.” Harry finally mumbled, when he realized that Louis wasn't going to add anything else. It was entirely plausible in Harry´s opinion that Louis had forgotten that he had been talking all along.

 

They stood silently in front of each other. Never quite meeting each other´s eyes, but they were still as close as they could possibly be.

 

They were like planets who had been in orbit around one another for too long, and this July night was the perfect place for them to finally crash into each other.

 

Time passed with stars rolling over their heads, and finally Harry spoke.

 

“Niall's really nice.”

 

Louis looked up and his eyelashes looked like a thousand shooting stars in the red electrical lights. His eyes crinkled.

 

“He's a right laugh, isn't he?”

 

Harry nodded.

 

“Good night, Hazza.” Louis mumbled and rose onto his tippy-toes, one small and warm hand searching for purchase on Harry´s chest, as he leaned in close to kiss Harry on the cheek. “See you around.”

 

He leaned back and smiled bashfully.

 

“See you around, yeah.” Harry mumbled, stunned into silence as his cheek radiated an electric warm throughout his entire body. The point where Louis' lips had brushed his skin was almost burning, his skin still feeling the tingles of Louis' skin on his, the soft summer breeze caressing the wet spot of Louis' lips, sending shivers down his spine.

 

Louis smiled and waved, his hand not even uncurling fully, just a tiny hand wiggling fingers into the night as if they themselves were unsure what this good bye was supposed to do, if it was supposed to mean something. And then he dashed off, and Harry could hear him giggle under his breath all the way down the road, before he turned around once more and turned right.

 

 

The next morning, Harry was sitting comfortably in the kitchen nursing his tea, his hair puffy and wild on one side and ridiculously flattened on the other, when the door bell rang.

 

He listened to his mother shuffling down the stairs to open the door, and with a blank mind, his eyes still wandering restlessly around the kitchen as if they were fighting to stay open. He picked up hushed voices in the hallway, that were too soft to be understood. Apart from the almost familiar urgency with which the words were exchanged, Harry couldn't pick up anything.

 

“Harry? Honey, there's someone here to see you.” His mother´s voice floated through the kitchen, and finally, Harry perked up. There was no one in this town who could be looking for him, especially not this early in the morning. Unless…

 

He jumped up and shuffled awkwardly towards the door, and of course, there stood Louis, a bright smile on his face, his clothes all in order and freshly picked out from the closet, his shoes a bit scuffed up, but still a perfect complement to the outfit. In short, he looked awake and ready to take on the world, and his eyes turned into slits of mischief when he saw Harry´s state of undress.

 

“Rise and shine, Harold.” He laughed and pointed at Harry. “You look adorable.”

 

“What are you doing here?” Harry asked in return and swiftly covered his chest, the soft linen of his shirt rustling under his fingers.

 

“Came to get you. We have great things planned for today.”

 

“We do?” Baffled Harry looked at his mother, it was almost instinct, maybe she would know something, because he was honestly clueless.

 

“Go on then, Harry, it's not nice to keep people waiting.” And the way she smirked up at him, he had the sneaking suspicious that she was laughing at his expense.

 

His head snapped back to Louis, who was leaning against the door frame, his hair in careful disarray, and he looked as if he didn't have a care in the world, he looked as if the night in the kitchen, or God forbid, the past three years, hadn't happened.

 

“Let me just -” Harry pointed helplessly at himself and then upstairs and dashed off before Louis could object. A shower was not an option with Louis waiting downstairs, Harry knew as much, but with Louis looking like he had walked straight out of one of Harry´s wet dreams when he had been 16, a stressful year, during which he had been trying to come to terms with the fact that his best friend was starring in his nightly bed routine, well with Louis looking like that, he couldn't afford to look like _this_.

 

Changing into skinnier jeans, a new shirt and worn out boots, he tried to save his hair by putting it into a bun, and well, that was that, really. Nothing more to save in the short amount of time, Louis apparently deemed appropriate of granting him.

 

Finally downstairs, him and Louis took off, walking side by side in silence for a long time, until Harry finally gathered the courage to ask: “So where are we going, Louis?”, but Louis' affronted gasp, and his hand, that zipped his lips close, told him that apparently it was supposed to be a secret.

 

“So you're not going to talk?” Harry asked and felt Louis' arm brush against his, as he tried to avoid a hole in the pavement.

 

He unzipped his lips: “Nope.” He zipped them back together.

 

“Why did you bring me out then?” Harry carefully brought his body closer to Louis, craving the touch of his arm against his, be it through layers of clothing and accidental, he wanted to feel Louis' elbow bump into his, and he wanted to feel the warmth that Louis' skin radiated.

 

Louis rolled his eyes. Unzipped his lips once more. “I want to show you something and I thought it would be nice.” He looked towards Harry, his eyelashes framing questioning eyes. “It's nice right? After last night, I thought -”

 

And Harry understood. Leaning over, he grabbed Louis' hand, lead it towards his mouth and traced one of Louis' fingers across his lips. Zipping his lips close again. “Lead the way then.” He whispered, painfully aware of their proximity.

 

Louis smiled and nodded, completely engrossed in his mission once more.

 

In the end, Louis stopped in front of a small dirt road, so narrow that Harry and Louis would have to go behind each other to fit. Louis extended a hand and motioned for Harry to go first.

 

Harry raised an eyebrow sceptically and took in his surroundings, the bright street behind him, the houses on his sides and Louis, grinning up at him, like he had just shown Harry the track to heaven.

 

“Louis, I'm going to be completely honest with you. This doesn't seem like a good idea.”

 

“Oh but it is. Trust me.” And then he shoved Harry along, laughing as he stumbled over a root. Louis left his hands on Harry´s shoulders to guide him along and Harry revelled in the point of contact.

 

After fighting off mosquitoes and more than one ill-intended tree, they finally stepped onto a small clearing, rusty old railways marking the ground like claw marks, but they didn't seem to lead anywhere.

 

“What is this?” Harry asked in awe and turned towards Louis who was still swatting the air around him, even though Harry was sure that all the insects had fucked off some time ago.

 

“This, Harry, this is the place to be, here in good old Donny. If you know it exists, of course.”

 

“So how do you know about it?”

 

“Niall showed me. Said that when he moved here, he often came looking for a place to be alone, because every day there were so many new things and he just needed to sort out his head. He might seem loud and weird, but I'm telling you, that kid is just as much an introvert as you.”

 

“So it really is a secret hide out?” Harry walked further into the open space and turned on his heels, trying to take everything in. In the distance the buzzing of cars and bikes and people could still be heard, but it was like they had entered a completely different universe, where it was just the two of them.

 

“The most secret.”

 

Louis smiled at him, when Harry finally came to a stop. And Harry, for whatever reason, felt so utterly comfortable in this moment, in this clearing that so clearly meant something to Louis, and that separated them from the rest of the world. Harry felt at ease.

 

And yet, still, he couldn't keep his thoughts from lashing out, his mouth like a firearm: “Why did you bring me here?” He asked once more and Louis visibly faltered.

 

“I wanted to talk to you, I guess.” Louis supplied and his shoulder´s shrugged in a weak attempt at nonchalance.

 

Harry tried to swallow down his comment about the fact, that they had been talking, that talking seemed to be the only thing that held the two of them together during the past days. He didn't say it out loud, but deep down he knew what Louis meant.

 

Smiling encouragingly, Harry looked at the ground behind him and let himself fall on his bum, spreading out to lie on his back and grinning up at a stunned Louis.

 

“Come down here. Let's talk.”

 

 

 

“ _Harry, stop seeing dicks everywhere.”_

 

“ _Louis, come on, you can't tell me that it doesn't look like one.”_

 

“ _It doesn't.” Louis' deadpan response rang through Harry´s garden, as they watched the clouds above them fly by._

 

“ _Don't be like that. You're the one that drew a realistic looking penis on my maths book two days ago. I'm just sharing your interests.”_

 

“ _You´re just weird, is what you are, Harry.”_

 

_They had been 10 years old._

 

 

 

Time passed quickly, after Louis had also made himself comfortable on the ground - “there are pebbles sticking into my lungs, Harry. This is a dumb idea” - and they finally came to string words together once more.

 

At first, it was like the past days, nonsense about run-of-the-mill experiences, anecdotes about each other´s families, and sometimes they even allowed the other to catch a glance into their private lives, information about their friends, how they had come to be, and what they got up to.

 

In Harry´s opinion those stories were the most interesting, but also the most painful, because of course he wanted to know how Louis acted in a safe group of friends, he wanted to know how Louis' life had changed and, most embarrassingly maybe, he wanted to gauge if he would fit into this group. If Harry, fashion invested, and different, would fit as seamlessly into Louis' life, as he imagined Louis would fit into his.

 

But on the other hand, it hurt to know how and with whom, Louis had moved on. Harry was thankful for the people that loved Louis, and, by the looks of it, that he himself cared deeply for as well, but he still couldn't shake off the feeling of being replaced. Stupid, stupid, stupid feelings of the past that he couldn't quite quench.

 

Louis' eyes formed into slits though, all crinkled up and wonderful, when Harry talked about London, when he mentioned Zayn and Liam and even when he slagged Nick.

 

A nagging part of Harry´s brain tried to convince him that it was all an act, that Louis must feel the same way, that no matter who had lost more that night, they would both feel hurt by the fact that other people had become important in their lives.

 

But the point where Harry could prove his paranoid thoughts to be true never came. Louis smiled and laughed, and sometimes, sometimes his hand would even brush against Harry´s.

 

The 'I love you' burned on Harry´s tongue like bitter alcohol. He would swallow it down, again and again and again, and his vision started to swim, because the words were almost toxic held in like this, but he took another look at Louis, lying carefree and happy and attentive next to him, and he drank him in and swallowed it down.

 

This was not what he was here for.

 

“Niall thinks that I am not getting laid enough. That poor bastard has been pining over the same girl for years, and yet apparently I am the one caught in a dry spell?”

 

Louis' melodic giggle did nothing to help Harry out of his stupor. Their conversation had gotten closer and closer to the topic of hook ups and love interests, but Harry had thought, had believed, had firmly held onto this last straw, that they wouldn't breach it fully. That they would not talk about love affairs.

 

The fear of getting rejected again was still burning brightly in Harry´s chest, the fear of telling Louis that he was gay now, when he had had plenty of insight into the world of a gay man, and after he had truly, truly become comfortable in his own skin, just by living in it, not by pining after his childhood friend and reaching out to people on the internet who told him 'they understood', that fear might have been dulled, but it was still there. Like a healed mosquito bite, it wasn't an ever present pain, but it still stung when he pressed down in it. Louis was pressing down on it.

 

Because if he were to start talking about girls, about what he had done with them, or how he had enjoyed it, then Harry would have to tell him. Again.

 

And Harry had realized early into the first night back here, when he had been standing in Louis' kitchen, that Louis had changed, but, fear, like love maybe, didn't listen to reason. And maybe Louis' eyes would stop crinkling and he would stop laughing and maybe he would leave.

 

“I told Niall, that it had nothing to do with me not being able to pull, because trust me, I can pull. Have you seen my bum? I can get anyone.”

 

Idly, almost lazily, Harry remembered something Zayn´s make-up artist, Lou Teasdale had once said. If guys talk about their bums in a matter bordering on excessive, they were most likely gay. He had found it immensely offensive back then and still cringed at the thought of it, but somehow his mind deemed it necessary to remind him.

 

“So we went to -” Louis' voice suddenly stopped, his next words more a whisper than anything. “We went to Rocky´s and -”

 

Harry´s breath got stuck in his throat, and slowly, as if Louis was a rabbit and he the snake, slowly he turned his head and looked at Louis, who was still staring at the sky, as if that one word didn't change everything.

 

“But Rocky´s is...” Harry didn't know how to ask Louis to confirm.

 

“No interruptions, Harry please. I am trying to tell a story here.” The mocking malice that Louis probably wanted to put behind his words got lost in the softness of his voice. Without thinking twice about it, Harry reached for Louis' hand and squeezed once. Louis smiled.

 

“So we went to Rocky´s. I bet there are better Gay Bars in London, right Hazza?” Louis sounded insecure and fragile and Harry wanted to hold more than his hand. Instead he just shook his head, which was more or less useless, since Louis was still straining his neck to see the clouds above.

 

“And there was a guy who was quite handsome actually and who clearly thought he had a shot with me, but Niall, worst wingman ever, I'm telling you, spilt beer all over him and tried to soak the spilt beer up with his napkin, which … well, let's just say that the guy thought that he was coming on to him. Straight as an arrow Niall, feeling up a gay guy. Needless to say that I didn't get laid that night.”

 

His hand twitched in Harry´s, and his eyes fluttered too fast. There had been no need to tell this story. There was nothing special about it. The punch line being that Louis _didn't_ get laid? No that wasn't worth telling. Louis must have known that. Must have known that the only thing, the ONLY thing Harry would pay attention to was -

 

Harry´s throat closed up. “The Gay Bars in London aren't much better.”

 

Louis linked their fingers together.

 

“I'm sorry about how I reacted that night. I didn't know back then. I didn't -”

 

“It's -” Harry began, but Louis interrupted him abruptly. His head snapping towards Harry, their eyes meeting.

 

“Don't you dare say it's okay Harry, I swear to God.”

 

Harry swallowed.

 

“I didn't want to be back then. I didn't want to be gay. I had enough things to worry about, you know? After Mark left… I had to think about how to help my mum, how to pass my A-levels.” Louis laughed dryly. “There was just so much and even though I had been playing with the thought before, I just wasn't ready to admit it.”

 

“I'm sorry that I forced myself on you, that I kissed you, I should have known, that...” Guilt was wrecking Harry, making his bones feel so heavy that he felt as if he were being pressed into the ground. Maybe he would never be able to get up again. The cement block that was currently sitting on his chest suggested that it was a logical fear.

 

Suddenly a warm hand was pressed onto his mouth, and Harry immediately searched for Louis' gaze. He was lying on his side now, one hand on Harry´s mouth, the other still entangled with Harry's hand between them.

 

“I kissed you back, didn't I?” He pulled his hand back.

 

“You kissed me back?” Harry whispered and the 'I love you' that had been burning on his tongue for so long now, threatened to spill out.

 

“Don't tell me you didn't notice.” Louis laughed. “Must have been a pretty bad kisser if that's the case.”

 

Harry nodded, shook his head, nodded. He leaned in closer, until he could feel Louis' breath on his face.

 

There were quiet for a long time after that. What else was there to say, really?

 

And yet, even though the air was heavy with the almost perceivable smell of unasked questions and unuttered confessions, they didn't turn away from each other. With their faces as close together as they were now, Harry could finally take in everything about Louis that he had missed before.

 

After years and years of childhood memories, Harry could have described Louis' face in his sleep, could have even drawn him maybe, down to the very last freckle. But three years change people, and where his skin had been unblemished before, Harry could now count at least five more small birthmarks, small and random like paint splatters on a canvas. The corners of his eyes, which had been soft and thin when he had been 18, looked well-used, like well-loved paper, tiny cracks adorning them, that told stories of a lot of laughter and happiness.

 

And even though Harry would have liked to be the one to make Louis laugh like that, his heart jolted at the thought of Louis being happy, regardless of the cause.

 

His hair was longer, framing his face almost lovingly, a bitter-sweet contrast to his face, that, just as much as anything, had changed over the years. The cheekbones, that had always been prominent, one of Louis' strongest features, were now bare of the childish chubby cheeks, all hard and pronounced, and the soft strands of hair falling around them.

 

He noticed his hand getting sweaty, where it was entangled with Louis', but Harry didn't want to pull his hand back. Louis had yet to say something, so Harry felt comfortable enough to press his overheating palm against Louis more firmly. The only point of contact they had allowed themselves, apart from Louis' kiss yesterday night.

 

“You kissed me yesterday, too.” Harry whispered.

 

Louis' lips twitched slightly, as if he were suppressing a smile, and failing, much to Harry´s chagrin.

 

“So you noticed then.”

 

“Hey.” Harry drawled and his head tilted closer.

 

Suddenly Louis' eyes fixed onto Harry´s and time froze.

 

“Why did you come back?” He whispered and this was it, wasn't it? Harry could come clean now.

 

He could start opening up, could tell Louis that for three years, Harry hadn't thought about any one else the way he had always thought about Louis. He could talk about all the guys he had hooked up with, when he had tried to embrace his new self, the one that would maybe really be successful, and who could actually make it big in London. There were plenty of stories, where the punchline wasn't that he didn't get laid, but more that it had been amazing, and yet Harry had still felt empty, because the dip in his lover´s spine had been too different, because their back had been too broad, because their hair had had too much product in it, because they had smelled too differently.

 

He could tell Louis that after all these years it was still just him. Just Louis. He could tell him, that it had taken him months, and a lot of alcohol that his friends had so innocently supplied him with, to even gather up the courage to come here.

 

This would be the time, where he could say, that he was still madly in love with Louis.

 

That he not only was in love with the Louis off his past, but that he had gotten to know a Louis, which his subconsciousness had already started imagining could love him back, and that that was a Louis he loved even more.

 

There was more softness to him, disregarding his cheekbones. Louis seemed settled and at ease, and – he was gay. He had come to terms with himself and no one was more beautiful than when they were true to themselves. Louis was Louis through and through, his skin a part of him now, rather than something restricting him and his general happiness filled Harry with so much love, that if he weren't still glued to the ground with nervousness, he would have surely floated away.

 

“Harry?”

 

“I, uhm, I came back because -”

 

“No wait!” Louis suddenly fell in, his hand finding a way over Harry´s mouth once more. As if Harry wouldn't give him his full attention as soon as Louis asked for it. And yet Harry made no move to push Louis' hand away.

 

“I think I have to say something first.”

 

Harry nodded and tried his best to ignore how his lips rubbed against Louis' palm, how soft Louis' skin felt underneath his lips.

 

“I'm not afraid any more.”

 

Harry´s brow furrowed, his head shaking slightly.

 

“Wha'tcha meeen?” He mumbled against Louis' hand.

 

“I was afraid three years ago. I was a scared little teenager, whose best friend was braver and better and more lovely than anything I had ever known, and I pushed you away. But I am not afraid any more.”

 

Solemn eyes, big and wide like an owl´s, looked down on Harry. Harry blinked up.

 

“ _Do you understand?”_ Louis' eyes seemed to whisper, and when Harry finally did, he puckered his lips against Louis' hand, and kissed it softly.

 

Louis smiled and pulled the hand away.

 

“Now you can talk.” He mumbled, his eyes never leaving Harry´s.

 

“I came back because I wanted to tell you that - “

 

And then Louis came crashing down on him, his lips soft and almost unsure, in contrast to the way he had attacked Harry´s mouth that fateful night.

 

He was gone as fast as he had come.

 

“Carry on, please. Sorry.”

 

Harry gaped at him. His tongue retracing the pressure of Louis' lips against his, trying to get a taste of Louis, but the kiss had been too gentle and too short, and Louis was still an entire entity next to him, and that was just unfair, wasn't it? Harry wanted to melt against him, wanted to know how Louis tasted, no need for retracing or second-guessing.

 

“What did you do that for?”

 

Louis shrugged as if he hadn't just robbed Harry´s lungs of all their oxygen, and he hadn't just filled them with pure adrenalin, and, unsurprisingly maybe, lust.

 

Harry coughed awkwardly.

 

“I came back because I realized something.”

 

A thumb caressed the soft skin of his palm, warm blue eyes encouraging him to go on.

 

“I wanted to help myself move on actually. Because my friends told me that I could either come here and sort my shit out, or just keep being a loner, dragging them all down. Which, by the way, is a complete exaggeration. I am always fun to be around.”

 

“I am sure you are.”

 

Harry never knew how _soft_ Louis could get. He knew that Louis turned warm and fuzzy around babies, he knew that Louis was expressive and that almost everything could be read straight off his face.

 

But now, his eyebrows were shaped into almost perfect semicircles, his forehead was bare of any wrinkles, his mouth was slightly agape, his lips rosy and soft (and damp, Harry realized and gulped), and his eyes - they were sparkling almost.

 

“I might still be a little bit in love with you.” Harry finally whispered, scared almost that the soft breeze running through the clearing could take the words away before they reached Louis, scared that he might have been too quiet.

 

“I have loved you since we were 18.” Louis whispered and then lips met lips again, hands became untangled, because reaching out to chase down skin, to touch and to memorise, was finally an option. After three years, two months and thirteen days, these boys used their hands to soak up everything about each other.

 

The distance between the knobs on their spine, the taste in the hollow of their throats, the smell of each other and the press of fingers in each other´s hair, pulling each other closer, ever closer, until noses bumped into one another, and laughter cut through the air, breaking the kiss just before it could have turned into something more than just the questioning glide of tongues finding to each other.

 

“Maybe we should go home.” Louis whispered, his lips brushing against Harry´s, his breath warm on his face.

 

“Maybe.” Harry mumbled, his thumb stroking Louis' cheek, again and again it glided over smooth skin.

 

“Up and at them then.” Louis laughed and jumped up, grabbing Harry´s hand to drag him up along side him.

 

Entangled by their hands, their shoulders bumping and heads turning into necks to stifle breathless giggles, they went home, Harry following Louis blindly into his house.

 

“The girls are in school and -” Louis said while he fumbled for his keys, Harry pressed warmly into his back, kissing every inch of skin he could get, igniting every nerve ending.

 

“Yes.” He mumbled against the soft hairs of Louis' nape.

 

“Yes?” Louis asked and the lock finally clicked, the door swinging open.

 

“Yes. Everything. Yes.”

 

And maybe it was the fact that words had only served to pull them apart, that made whispers and kisses so easy to communicate with for them, but it worked and soon they were stumbling up the steps to Louis' bedroom.

 

Everything that followed, the wandering hands, the demanding kisses, the hungry eyes, it was more than Harry could have ever dreamed of, more than he had asked for, but nevertheless, all he needed.

 

The tearing of clothes, the kisses against exposed skin, the whispers of lips over wildly beating hearts, it was all there suddenly and Harry lost himself in the feeling of getting lost in the warm space between Louis' chest and the cool sheets, the feeling of getting lost in the moment.

 

There was no time for thoughts, for questions, for anything else than this.

 

The feeling of turning violet.

 

Louis' hands were small and warm and firm, and they held Harry as if they knew exactly what they wanted, what Harry needed and Harry could do nothing but hold on.

 

He tugged at Louis' hair, wound his arms around his shoulders, pulled and pulled, always closer together, and with his legs splayed on either side of Louis, he could feel every last twitch of muscle above him.

 

So unlike their first kiss, there was no trepidation, there was nothing shy about their kisses. And even though Harry had felt Louis kiss his lips raw all those years ago, it had edged closer to desperation in form of controlled fear, than the kind of desperation Louis let loose on him now.

 

With his soft moans, the heavy sighs and the wet glide of tongue, so much tongue, over uncharted territory.

 

And Harry was in love with this loud, loud boy, but now, when he started to win his control back, when he finally dared to flip them over, Louis soft and wrecked beneath him, all flushed and breathless, he started to realize that Louis was louder still.

 

Loud, loud, loud.

 

And all Harry´s.

 

The 'Fuck you' that was still ringing in Harry´s ears, those last words before the kitchen door had swung closed, were replaced with expletives much more colourful, groaned into open mouths and marking skin in a way that was purple and beautiful.

 

'Fuck me'. Harry shivered, Harry bit, Harry claimed.

 

Claimed every single patch of skin and caressed the tattoos that were splattered across Louis' body.

 

The triangle, secrets Louis whispered into his ear, when he was curled up around him in the middle of the bed, blankets keeping them safe from the world.

 

'It is what it is', a confession to everything he had done, and everything that wouldn't be. And now, everything he could have. They could have so much more.

 

'Far away', because that's all Louis wanted to be, when he lay awake in the middle of the night.

 

The doodles on his forearm, the stick figure, the tea cup, the globe, the paper plane and so much more and it was all Louis.

 

Harry kissed his own tattoos into Louis' body. Hoping that one day he could ink his love for Louis into his own blood stream. Hoped to fill the blank spaces of his body, the spaces where he hadn't put a needle to skin yet, with only Louis. Maybe right here next to the heart, or on his wrist, maybe on his hips, where a littering of bruises was already forming, a semi circle of mischief that Louis had kissed into this skin.

 

But for now Harry was satisfied with the way things were, Louis pressed into him, violet and beautiful.

 

And somehow they found each other again and again, after round one and two, and once more in the early hours of the morning, when the slide of sweaty bodies was lazy and the dragging of hips almost caressing.

 

 

 

_It was a Friday, when Louis realized that he was in love with his best friend._

 

_He had always known that the way he loved Harry was different, perhaps even more special than whatever he felt for his other friends, but he had never really thought about it. Why should he have? He loved Harry and vice versa, there was nothing to discuss further._

 

_But it was a Friday, when Louis was sitting on Harry´s bed, waiting for him to finish his homework, that it truly hit him. It wasn't like Harry had done anything special that would finally make the coin drop, it just… suddenly made sense._

 

_It was like everything suddenly became calm and safe, as if the whole world just suddenly came into focus, and Louis wanted to never leave this room again._

 

_It was Harry, sitting at his desk, his lip between his teeth, a pencil tapping restlessly against his temple, and his hair ruffled and curlier than usually, because Harry hadn't showered yet._

 

_Not even that had Louis shrinking back, even though he could see that there was grease accumulating at the roots, it was just – Harry. He still wanted to run his fingers through his curls, play with the springy bits that fell into his nape and still wanted to bury his face in the crook of his neck, feel the curls tickle his cheek._

 

_Louis had always known that he was prone for body contact, his mum had told him so, his friends had laughed about it, the girls found it 'charming'. He knew, so he hadn't put much thought behind it, as to why he constantly wanted to touch Harry. It was just the way he was, wasn't it?_

 

_But now, as he sat here watching, his hands hidden under his thighs, because he didn't want to annoy Harry, his feet propped under his bum, so that he wouldn't get the idea to prod Harry with his foot, and his gaze fixed solely on the dimly illuminated profile of Harry, he just realized._

 

_He had never held himself back for anyone._

 

_Annoying people was what he did. The only thing he had to offer. He didn't have shining grades, he didn't have money, he wasn't necessarily cool, but he was funny, he could make people laugh, and the easiest way to do so was to be as mischievous as possible._

 

_With Harry he had never even truly tried._

 

_The body contact he sought out with the lanky boy in front of him, the touches he craved to give Harry weren't for a good laugh, weren't because he wanted other people to roll their eyes, it wasn't for show._

 

_It had always been soft knuckles in the warm dip of his spine, a weary head on broad shoulders, a hand in Harry´s back pocket._

 

_It had always been this: Louis sitting still, Harry a quiet presence next to him._

 

_And the sudden vertigo that gripped Louis, that made him tug at his sleeves, that made him look at Harry as if he could disappear any moment now, it was enough to finally **see**._

 

_And before the fear got a hold of him, the fear that started gnawing on his insides, whispering dirty lies into his ears, spreading poison into his lungs, telling him that he couldn't be gay, couldn't be a burden, couldn't do that to his mother, couldn't be different, had to fit in, had to do well, before all of that, before Louis fell, he let his mind walk freely. Away from the dark clouds of teenage paranoia and the abyss of a hateful society._

 

_One could say, that for a short moment, Louis Tomlinson walked into love, knowing fully well what he was getting himself into, who he was giving his heart to._

 

_That short moment in time, when Louis registered the slight blush on his cheeks and the dampness of his palms and the flutter in his stomach, he took in everything Harry._

 

_The flutter of his eyelashes, the curve of his jaw, the slope of his nose._

 

_His hands, always so much bigger than his own, his lips, always pink and damp, because Harry nibbled on them when he was nervous, nibbled on them when he was deep in thought, bit them bloody when he was scared._

 

“ _Harry,” Louis breathed and held his breath while Harry set his pen down with a flourish, turning his attention immediately to Louis._

 

“ _Mhm?”_

 

_Louis gulped._

 

“ _You done soon?”_

 

_Harry laughed and stood up, walking into Louis' space, flopping down right on top of him, taking him down with his weight, pressing him into the mattress._

 

“ _No, but it doesn't matter. Wanna do something with you, Lou.” His nose brushed against Louis' ear, and for the first time, Louis realized that it made him shiver._

 

_Harry smelled like an unwashed teenager. Impartially speaking. But Louis buried his nose in Harry's hair nevertheless, breathed him in, and smelled sleepiness, vanilla and home._

 

“ _Tsk, tsk, tsk, Styles. I am disappointed. School should be taken seriously. No slacking off, Mister. Your mother would be very disappointed in you.”_

 

“ _At least I'll have your unwavering support. You'll still be there, when I am old and poor and miserable and living on the streets, right?”_

 

_Harry´s grin was big, too big, too bright, and Louis wanted to kiss that dimple. Wanted to smooth that skin out again._

 

“ _Of course I will, Hazza.” He whispered, and didn't know what he was really promising._

 

_Too much probably, but he wanted it all in that moment._

 

 

 

“Everything.” Harry whispered softly as he kissed Louis' lips once more.

 

“You and me.” He mumbled and turned further into Harry's side.

 

“Finally.” Harry giggled and turned around, pressing his back into Louis' front, pulling his arm over his chest.

 

Louis fell asleep to the soft hum of Harry's breath, and in the short moment between wakefulness and sleep, he finally understood his promise, the one he had given Harry so easily, so naively, with so much innocence.

 

He was still there.

 

Forever.

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, all your prompts were amazing kiwikero, thank you! I hope I did your prompt justice xoxo
> 
> Then I would like to thank the mods of this exchange for allowing me to have an extension. I am truly grateful and you did a wonderful job with the whole exchange. Thank you thank you thank you!!
> 
> Of course, there are also a lot of people who held my hand along the way, and I just want you to know, that I love you all very much a lot! Without you, there would never have been a story, only a broken writer, crying in the corner, rocking back and forth.
> 
> When the writers are revealed, I will add a playlist to this story, because my prompt was based on a song, and songs were what gave me inspiration and ideas for each and every single scene.
> 
> Thank you all so much and I hope you will enjoy this story as much as I did, when I was writing it <3


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